Sutures
by uzatenshi
Summary: Izaya always fancied himself above humanity... but even he never considered the real truth of the matter. And, as he's about to discover, his life as a fallen angel is far from over. Fallen!Izaya; established "fouRRR!some" relationship (Shizuo/Izaya/Shinra/Celty); longfic fill for the drrrkinkmeme; contains NSFW; DAILY UPDATES (for a while)
1. Prologue

_(A/N) Greetings, lovely humans, and welcome to Sutures! This fic was originally posted on the durarara kink meme, specifically here:_

 _drrrkink dot livejournal dotcom slash 7084 dot html?thread=26061740#t26061740_

 _... and I finally decided it was worth cross-posting somewhere (butnotmymainaccountbecausenaughtybits)._

 _I'll be updating here once or twice a day until I catch up with all what's already posted on the meme. That being said, I do hope you enjoy, and please leave a comment if the fancy strikes you! They really do mean the world to me. ;w;_

 _Now the formality of_ **WARNINGS:**

 **This fic contains explicit sexual themes/scenes, an established polyamorous relationship, and a smattering of violence, blood, and gore. It also may or may not at some point contain asphyxiation, vomit (no, not in the kinky sense, just in the "oh-fuck-I'm-going-to-be-sick" sense), BSDM themes, gut-wrenching angst, eternal damnation, flying vending machines, and fluff. Beware upon entry, this is your BLANKET WARNING.**

 _Also, please note that I do not own Durarara! or it's lovely characters.  
_

* * *

Flying dreams had been fairly common for Izaya Orihara all throughout his life. In most of his dreams he could fly.

He had never been known to have _falling_ dreams.

The air whistled deafeningly around him as he fell amid a strange torrent of black feathers and sparks. He felt fear crawling along his skin, unlike any sensation he was used to. He was comfortable with his own cowardice, but this helpless terror was nothing like that. All he could think about was being unable to fly, and hitting the ground as a result. His heart was pounding, faster and faster and faster and—

A sharp, audible inhale— Izaya felt as though he had hit the surface of the bed with all the force of his dream-fall behind him. Shinra, behind him, bolted up.

"Izaya...?"

The information dealer was shaking, and for a moment his chest was heaving too hard for him to speak. Shinra's hand appeared on his bare shoulder, comforting in its weight.

"Nightmare?" he asked softly. "That's unusual."

Izaya tried desperately to catch his breath, staring into the somewhat hypnotic tangles of blonde hair just in front of his face. Shizuo was as deep a sleeper as always, and that constant in and of itself was soothing.

"Yeah..." His own voice was raspier than he expected. After a moment he sat up beside Shinra, although he kept his eyes fixed on his lap. The air was cold as the blanket slipped down from around his shoulders, but it felt somehow refreshing. "Falling. Pretty damn clichéd, right?"

"No, it's very interesting," Shinra said, then ran one thumb along the other's brow. "You're all sweaty. It must have been an intense dream to trigger a physiological reaction."

"You don't say..." Izaya's tone was unamused, although he was smiling slightly. "You're too analytical."

"Would you rather wake Shizuo? Then you'll get a plenty emotional reaction."

"No way..." Izaya said with a huff, then leaned over against the doctor. "Is Celty out?"

"Late-night run. I touched base with her an hour or so ago."

"Ah. Alright." Feeling himself begin to breathe normally, Izaya laid back down, feeling Shinra do the same behind him. The doctor wrapped one arm around his shoulders, pulling the blankets around them both again.

"Think you'll be able to get back to sleep?" Shinra murmured, and Izaya shrugged.

"It was just a dream..." Izaya muttered, and stiffened as Shinra kissed his neck.

"You're so cute when you're frightened. I don't get to see that sweet little face nearly often enough."

"You have problems."

"And you're one to talk? You sure you don't want me to tire you out a bit? It'll help you sleep better."

"You're impossible." But Shinra's teasing was working, getting Izaya's mind off the terrible dream and onto much more pleasant matters. Relenting, he ground his hips backwards into Shinra's. The doctor gave a trill of surprised delight and, given permission in such a way, proceeded.

Shizuo proved to be as deep a sleeper as he always had been, even as the bed began to rock and gasps of terror were replaced with those of pleasure.

... ... …

Izaya was too exhausted to dream the rest of the night, and woke the next morning with only a vague memory of his nightmare. Celty had returned sometime during the night, and all three boys emerged to find her waiting on the couch.

"Why didn't you come to bed?" Shinra asked plaintively, and Celty held up her reply.

"You and Izaya were busy. I didn't want to interrupt."

"Why didn't you guys wake me?" Shizuo asked.

"You would have been welcome to join in, you know," Shinra told Celty, ignoring the blonde boy.

"I know. If I had been in the mood, I would have, trust me."

"Girls and 'the mood,'" Shinra sighed, shrugged. "Fine, fine."

"I brought breakfast," Celty tapped out, and all three boys murmured their own version of "thank-yous."

But, as Izaya sat down at the table, he couldn't help but roll his shoulders and reach back, touching the spot between his shoulder blades. For as much as they ached, he must have slept wrong. He just hoped that the discomfort wouldn't last the rest of the day.


	2. Blanket Thief in the Night

_(A/N) And on we go! It's my custom to leave an author's note at the begining of every chapter, but I'll probably be skipping a few until we catch up. Most of my notes aren't all that important anyway, unless marked as such. :P_

 _Anyway, hope you guys are enjoying so far, and don't forget to leave a review!_

* * *

The work day was, for Izaya, largely uneventful. There didn't seem to be anything interesting going on in the city that day— which was rather unfortunate, as there was nothing to distract him from the ache in his back. So he went home early, hoping at least one of his housemates would be waiting there to keep him company.

"Welcome home."

If words on a screen could sound warm, Celty's did. "Thanks."

"How was work?"

"Unusually dull," Izaya replied, sitting down beside the dullahan on the couch and crossing his legs. "I think its time for some sort of change... some sort of spark..."

"Iiiiiii-zaaaaaa-yaaaaaaa!"

Celty moved easily out of the way as Shizuo came barreling over the back of the couch, plowing into Izaya and sending them both tumbling over the coffee table and across the floor. Izaya laughed cheerily as he was pinned to the floor and then kissed possessively.

"You're home early!" the blonde exclaimed.

"So are you," Izaya commented, pushing the other away playfully; Shizuo didn't budge, but instead leaned down and nuzzled the dark-haired man's cheek.

"Day off. You should take one once in a while, too."

"Days off hardly suit me," Izaya scoffed. "Boredom is tantamount to death for someone like me, remember?"

"I'll never let you get bored," Shizuo replied, then drew back slightly and cupped Izaya's face with one hand. He gave a predatory grin. "You should know better."

Smirking, Izaya leaned up for another kiss, this one far sloppier and longer. But when Shizuo pulled away, he used one hand to brush Izaya's bangs back from his forehead.

"You feel hot," he observed, and Izaya narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "You feeling alright?"

"Of course," Izaya replied. "When have you known me to get sick?"

Looking slightly disconcerted, Shizuo sat back atop Izaya's hips. The dark-haired man pushed himself up onto his elbows, wincing slightly at the twinge in his shoulders.

"You're sure you're alright?" Shizuo asked again, and this time Izaya really did shove him off.

"Of course!" he said, with an overly grand bow. "You needn't worry yourself, Shizu-chan. I'm not really so frail."

... ... ...

The second dream was painful. Dreams, he thought he had read somewhere, weren't supposed to be painful.

But that factoid didn't change the fact that this dream _hurt_.

It was falling again, much to Izaya's bewilderment. He almost couldn't fathom why he was falling, although he felt like he should have a very firm grasp on it.

 _Defeat..._

There was searing pain in his back, and the feathers around him burned brighter than they had before. Clutching uselessly at his shoulders, he opened his mouth as if to scream...

... but all that came out was a gush of blood and a bit of fire.

For the second night in a row Izaya awoke suddenly, terrified for his very life. And, for the second night in a row, Shinra was the first to move to comfort him.

"Another nightmare?"

Izaya chuckled faintly. "Yeah..." His back ached more furiously than ever, and he told himself that he _had_ to be imagining the feeling of something moving beneath the skin. When Shinra tried to cuddle up close to him, though, it felt altogether too strange and he pushed away.

"Izaya...?"

"I'm..." Feeling himself begin to shake for some strange reason, Izaya struggled back up and gathered the blankets to him. Then, reaching around, he grabbed his pillow. "I'm going... to sleep in my office."

"What?" Shinra protested, but Izaya was already stumbling off the end if the bed. He tripped briefly over Shizuo's feet, staggered, and then fell spectacularly in a tangle of bedclothes and limbs. His back twisted as he went down, and he cried out softly in pain. "Izaya!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine..." the informant muttered, getting back to his feet and shaking his head furiously. He ignored Shinra as he called out after him.

"Iza-chaaan, come back! Come back to bed! Please? Izaya! At least don't take the blanket! Come on, you go right past the linen cabinet on the way to your office! Come on, at least leave the blanket! Izayaaaa!"

Closing the door on the doctor's protests, Izaya smirked ruefully and put one hand to his forehead. "What the hell...?" he asked quietly, and jumped when a shape rose from the couch.

"Izaya? What's wrong?"

The dark-haired man shook his head slightly. "I was feeling crowded. I'm sleeping in my office tonight."

"Do you want to talk?" Celty tilted her neck in a questioning way.

"Nah, I really just want to sleep." But Izaya did pause on his way past; smirked, and leaned down to kiss her neck sweetly. "Thanks, though."

Nodding slightly, Celty stepped back and watched as he slunk into his office, blanket trailing on the ground. He closed the door tightly behind him, determined to wallow in the solitude of his office for at least the rest of the night. His back was itching and aching, so he reached back with one hand to rub at it...

... and froze.

There was an unfamiliar ridge beneath his skin, just to the right of his spine. And, even as he pressed down hesitantly with his fingers, it twitched and squirmed away, vanishing. Feeling his skin crawl with a strange chill, he forced his arm back down to his side.

 _It's... late…_ he thought slowly. _I'm tired... and strained... I'm imagining things. I have to be._

And so he curled up, making a burrito of himself within the blanket, and forced his mind to quiet.

But while his own thoughts might have obeyed him and gone silent, the nightmares did not, and stayed with him through the rest of the night.

... ... …

Shizuo woke to a very needy Shinra cuddled up to his side.

"Nngh...?"

"... warm..."

"Wha...?"

"... 'r warm... no blanket..."

Sighing slightly, Shizuo wrapped one arm around Shinra's huddled shape and drew him close. He ran on the warm side, so he was used to the seemingly cold-blooded doctor using him as a living heater. But the absence of a blanket was troubling... almost as troubling as the absence of a third body in the bed.

"Where's Izaya?"

"Wanted to sleep in his office..." Shinra mumbled. "... Nightmare..."

"Again?" Concerned, Shizuo sat up, ignoring Shinra's whine of protest. "Is he okay?"

"Dunno, dunno... come back to bed...!"

But Shizuo had already swung his legs off the bed, rising and giving himself a firm shake. Despite Shinra's continued protests, he strode out into the living room, the picture if a man on a mission.

"Good morning," Celty greeted him, and he paused to acknowledge her.

"Did you see Izaya last night?"

"Yes," was the typed reply. "He said he didn't want to talk, but he seemed alright. Looked a bit paler than usual, but that could have been the lighting."

Furrowing his brow, Shizuo strode over to Izaya's office door and pounded unapologetically on the wood barrier.

"Oi, Flea!" he called, then knocked again. "Open up! It's me!"

There was no reply. Trying the handle and finding it locked, Shizuo made short work of the pesky mechanism. Dropping the mangled metal, he pushed the door open slowly.

"Izaya?" It took Shizuo a moment to spot the other man; when he did, he couldn't help a startled exclamation. A disheveled head of dark hair popped out of the bundle of blankets.

"You certainly are as rude as ever, you heathen," Izaya observed with a yawn. "Bursting in here unannounced."

"On top of a bookcase is hardly a logical place for someone suffering from _falling_ nightmares to choose to sleep," Shinra observed flatly, from where he had come up behind Shizuo. Izaya shrugged, even as Shizuo approached the bookcase in question.

"It was the only place I _could_ sleep," he admitted, and then hopped down, aiming to land squarely on Shizuo's head. The blonde dodged with an indignant curse, and Izaya grinned an unashamed grin at him. But the expression vanished in a grimace, and he rolled his shoulders as if they were sore.

"Are you really okay?" Shinra questioned disbelievingly, even as Shizuo took a somewhat wild swing at the information dealer. Izaya skipped backwards.

"Shizu-chan has a good instinct about these things," he said, and then smirked. "He wouldn't be taking such serious shots at me if there was something wrong, would you, Darling?"

Shizuo grimaced, but stopped Izaya with one strong arm as the informant tried to pass him. And when Izaya looked up at him, casually annoyed, the blonde leaned down and pressed a solid kiss to his lips.

"I don't trust you nearly as far as I can throw you, Flea," he whispered into Izaya's mouth. "I'm watching you."

With a sigh and a put-upon smile, Izaya returned the kiss for a moment before pushing away. "Suit yourself, Shizu-chan."


	3. Interuption

Shinra was just settling into one of his favorite chairs with a book on his lap when Izaya appeared around the entryway, glancing around.

"Has Shizu-chan left for work?"

"Mm, and Celty." Shinra laid his book to the side. "I thought you were long gone, too."

"I'm taking a personal day," Izaya announced, flopping into the chair opposite Shinra. "I didn't sleep a damn wink last night. Namie can chase her own tail all day for all I care. I'm staying home and taking a nap."

"But you don't want to worry Shizuo?" Shinra guessed.

"I don't want him on my case," Izaya corrected with a sorry grin, and Shinra smiled understandingly.

"Right. Whatever you say." Shinra shrugged; Izaya's shoulders twitched and his smile turned to a grimace, but he couldn't know if the two motions were connected. "Are the nightmares really that bad?" he asked softly.

Izaya hesitated, then nodded but didn't elaborate.

"It's rare to see you get shaken up like this," Shinra commented, coming over and smushing into the chair beside a disgruntled Izaya. After a moment, though, the information dealer gave up on fighting it and leaned into the other.

"There are always... feathers," he said softly, and Shinra made a questioning sound. "I'm falling among a bunch of black feathers... and they're burning."

"Interesting..." Shinra said, one hand slinking under Izaya's shirt and playing along the tender skin right above his hip. Izaya chuckled softly at the touch.

"You have a one-track mind, you know that?" he asked good-humoredly, then shifted so that he could arch his back invitingly over the arm of the chair. He felt his shoulders throb and wondered briefly if he should be attempting such a twisted position on the cramped chair. But they would end up on the floor soon enough, he figured.

With a delighted and slightly manic grin, Shinra moved forward to accept the invitation. His lips brushed along Izaya's collar bone as his hands worked on the information dealer's pants, managing to get them off in an amazingly short period of time. Then he rid himself of his own slacks with a brief series of flailing kicks that made Izaya chuckle again.

"Eager, are we?"

"It's your fault," Shinra said playfully, then descended again and pulled Izaya's shirt off over his head. The information dealer felt his shoulders twitch strangely as Shinra's hands brushed past them, but he told himself he was imagining it. "You're just too pretty. I can't help it."

Izaya reached up to distract himself from the steadily increasing pain, wrapping his arms around Shinra's neck and pulling him closer. "That's the plan," he whispered gleefully against the doctor's lips, and then kissed the other man sweetly.

Shinra, with a high-pitched sound of delight, reached down and ran teasingly light fingers along Izaya's cock before gripping it firmly, making the man groan into his mouth. He pressed Izaya's against his own shaft, rolling his hips to create a delicious friction between them, and Izaya moaned louder as he did so.

"Romantic or all business?" Shinra asked breathily, and Izaya shook his head slightly.

"I want you _now_."

"Very well, my Prince of Darkness."

For some reason, the familiar phrase made Izaya's blood run cold for a split second. It wasn't as if Shinra had never called him that before... but it had never sounded quite so serious. Before Izaya could pursue that line of thought, though, the doctor rolled his hips again and pleasure sent the words scattering in all directions.

Shinra groped briefly for the lube hidden beneath the side-table lamp, then reached down with two slick fingers to prep Izaya's entrance. The information dealer felt his back arch and ache as one slipped inside him, and he hissed.

"You okay?" There was a note of concern in Shinra's voice; it usually took much more than a single finger to make Izaya hiss. The other shook his head.

"Just hurry up," he said softly, then put forth an effort to sound playful as he added, "I'm getting bored, here."

Huffing a bit crossly, Shinra shoved two more fingers in abruptly. But Izaya was ready, and took them easily. Of all his partners, Shinra was the smallest, fingers or otherwise.

"Ready?" the doctor checked, and Izaya nodded.

"If you'd get on with it before I fall asleep," he said with a grin, and Shinra gave an unamused laugh.

But as the doctor positioned Izaya's hips slightly better, the informant felt an alarmingly sharp pain in his upper back. His skin was suddenly burning all over; he stiffened, but Shinra didn't notice.

"Shin—"

The doctor was already moving forward, though, thrusting into Izaya and forcing his body into a more contorted position over the arm of the chair. It wasn't the penetration itself that drew a strangled shout from Izaya, but instead the agony of something tearing between his shoulder blades.

 _Sinew... flesh... tearing... ripping..._

"N-No...!"

"Izaya?"

Izaya felt his own face twist and had some fleeting thought for Shinra's reaction, but reality was slipping away from him. What replaced it was eerily similar to the nightmares— sparks and feathers and the terrible sensation of something being taken from him.

"No...!" He didn't know if he was speaking aloud, but he was powerless to stop the sobbing words. "No...!" _Don't... don't..._ "Don't take them...! Don't take them...!"

"Izaya! Izaya, what's wrong?! Izaya!" Shinra's shouts reached him as if through water— or no, not water. His ears were filled with _blood_ — it was pouring from his mouth and his ears and his eyes and his poor, ravaged shoulders...

And there was fire. There was fire all around him.

"Help...! Help me...! Don't... don't let me _fall_...! _Help_!"

"Izaya!"

Izaya felt his back hit the ground and cried out as his spine straightened. But suddenly the world was back in focus; suddenly it wasn't fire and blood but instead Shinra's worried face filling his vision. He blinked, aware of his chest heaving and his shoulders throbbing in time to his pounding heart.

"Izaya, talk to me!" Shinra begged, his voice ringing clear. "What's happening?! Izaya, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! What's happening?!"

"It's not your fault." Izaya was surprised by how raspy his own voice was, and he forced himself to sit up and clear his throat. He winced; put one hand to his temple.

 _What's... happening to me...?_

Staggering to his feet, Izaya made some attempt to get back on the chair. But the second he moved a wave of pain in his shoulders knocked him back down, and he barely managed to soften his landing. Shinra was instantly beside him.

"What happened?" the doctor asked pleadingly. "Please, Izaya, was it something I did? Does it have to do with the nightmares? Are you in pain?"

"No, yes, and _yesss_..." Izaya groaned softly, then tried again to get to his feet. This time he had a bit more success, although he had to grip the edge of the chair. Feeling suddenly and intolerably vulnerable, he groped for his clothes. But he couldn't seem to grasp them, and cursed in frustration.

"Izaya...!" Moving forward, Shinra tried to support him. But the next thing he knew, there was a trembling knife to his throat.

"Leave... me alone." Heaven only knew where he had gotten the weapon, considering he was totally naked. But Izaya's eyes glinted with intensity, and the doctor backed off accordingly.

And then the information dealer had vanished into his office— with newly installed doorknob —and locked the door behind him.

... ... ...

"... and he hasn't come out since." Shinra hung his head once his story was over. Shizuo's face was frozen in a horrified expression, and Celty was wringing her hands.

"Have you tried to talk to him?" she asked, after a moment. Shinra threw up his hands.

"Only a hundred and two times! He won't even answer me through the door. If I couldn't hear him pacing in there, I would be afraid he was de—" the doctor stalled as Shizuo fixed him with a haunted gaze, thinking better of what he had been about to say.

"Well, we can't just let him stay in there indefinitely," Celty said. "If nothing else, he needs to eat and drink. He should let you examine him, too, if he admits he's in physical pain."

"I'll get him out," Shizuo growled, standing abruptly. Alarmed, Shinra rose too and grabbed his arm.

"Breaking down the door might not be the best way, Shizu-kun! L-Let's stop and—"

"What alternative does he leave us?" the blonde demanded, his voice strained with worry. "He's never shut all of us out so completely. There's always at least one of us that can get through to him. Either that or he'll be his normal jackass self with _all_ _three_ of us while he's coming apart inside and we won't even find out until it's all over. Since that's not the case this time, it has to be something serious, right? We can't just let it go."

Still looking worried, Shinra slowly released Shizuo's arm. "Alright, but..."

"We'll be right there too," Celty held up for the doctor to read. "All three of us. We'll be there for him."

"Yeah..." Shinra admitted, but looked over sharply at a crash from Izaya's office. Celty and Shizuo turned, too, and the three of them fell silent for a moment.

Then, all at once, the screaming began.


	4. Battering

Izaya had not been having a good day.

Since he had locked himself in his office, he had been experiencing an odd blend of reality and dreamlike visions. The ache in his back was getting steadily worse, and he was no longer denying the fact that _something_ was squirming beneath his skin.

But that seemed unexpectedly natural.

So he sat in his desk chair, chatting amicably with some Dollars members while he tried to maintain some semblance of calm. He had ignored Shinra's knocking and worried calling, wondering what he would do when Shizuo returned home and knocked his door down. He eventually decided that he would deal with it when the time came. He even made several calls to clients, although he stopped when he realized he couldn't exactly remember what he was saying from call to call. His cell phones kept ringing, of course— and unfortunately it was against his policy to turn them off —but he ignored them and may or may not have allowed a couple of their batteries to die.

And then the pain got worse.

Driven to distraction, he had turned off the computer and simply sat, trying not to get too totally lost in the nightmarish visions flooding his mind. He was growing used to them, now more analytical now than fearful, but it was still damnably disorienting.

If only the dreams were to be the worst of it.

He heard Shizuo and Celty discussing him with Shinra. He knew then that his time was up, and that had made him sink down onto his haunches, cradling his head as he tried to think of a way out— or, at the very least, a way to appear somewhat normal to his lovers; a story, any story.

 _Aren't I... supposed to be so good at stories...?_

His shoulders, however, chose that moment to split apart. Realty and rational thought were stripped along with his skin, and then there were only the nightmarish visions of fire and feathers left to him.

... ... ...

Izaya's pained screech spurred Shizuo to action, and within seconds the barrier separating them was nothing but splinters. The blonde stopped, however, in the doorway, and Shinra drew a sharp breath from just behind him.

"Izaya...!" Shizuo's cry didn't reach its target, who was twisted in an odd position at the center of the floor. He seemed to have ripped his own shirt off, his bare back turned toward the door. There were two slits across it, right over his shoulder blades— slits that were pulsating slightly.

And then, with a violent explosion, two strange limbs burst from the slits in a spray of crimson blood.

" _Iiii-zaaaa-yaaaa!_ " Shizuo's shout was deafening this time, and he rushed forward despite Shinra's shout of warning. The new, awkward appendages were moving jerkily, and as Shizuo approached they came alive in a flurry of flapping, splattering blood everywhere. Izaya's screaming reached a new pitch, too, and Shizuo winced back.

"Those couldn't be... wings?!" Shinra gawked, but Shizuo was less than concerned with such things.

"Izaya! Izaya, hang in there!" he shouted, and then dove in against the battering force of the supposed wings. He was knocked briefly aside, but bounced back and managed to reach Izaya's body.

"No!" the informant screamed suddenly, and a neat slash opened along Shizuo's chest. "No, get away! Get away— you can't do this! You can't do this to me!"

"Izaya!" Heedless of his wound, the blonde persisted. But the wing movements were growing more frantic, and Izaya's knife was slicing wildly through the air, too.

"He's dreaming!" Shinra shouted, over the din. "He's stuck in one of his nightmares!"

"Iiiiiiiiii-zaaaaaa-yaaaaa! Wake up, you stupid flea!" Shizuo roared it as he aimed a full-force punch at Izaya's face. But the blow only grazed its target as one bloody wing slammed into Shizuo's stomach with enough force to knock him back.

"We have to wait until—" Shinra tried to plead, grabbing Shizuo's shoulders. But the blonde shook him off, forcefully enough to send him sprawling.

"Until what?!" he snarled, wiping blood from his eyes— Izaya's or his, it was anyone's guess. "Until he hurts himself? Hell no!"

Celty stepped forward, holding up the bold message, "Step back. I'll subdue him." Her shadows slunk forward beneath their feet, toward Izaya's writhing form, and Shizuo gave a relieved exclamation.

But as soon as the dark extensions reached Izaya, they began to smolder and fizzle. Celty physically recoiled, and after an instant her shadows snapped back to her like so many rubber bands.

"What the hell just happened?!" Shizuo demanded; Celty was already tapping furiously.

"Like my shadows, but fire—!" she typed. "He's on fire! It's spectral fire! I can't touch him— I'll burn!"

"Looks like it falls to me after all," Shizuo huffed, but Celty caught his shoulder.

"Wait until he calms down!" she pleaded. "You're worried about him hurting himself, but it's much more likely he'll injure you!"

"I'm not just sitting back and watching this happen!" Shizuo roared, wrenching himself free and then flinging himself once again at Izaya's writhing form. With sheer brute force behind him, he managed to connect with the informant's main body on the first try. "Izaya! Izaya, wake up!

"Get away!" was the barely intelligible, shrieked reply. "I've pulled the wool over God's— over _God's_ eyes! The likes of you can't do _anything_ to me!"

Shizuo wasn't listening, instead persisting. "Izaya, you have to wake up! You worthless flea, wake—!"

The blade of Izaya's knife sliced through the air, releasing a splash of scarlet. Shizuo, with a startled exclamation, fell backwards with a thud, letting himself be battered with the edges of the flailing wings.

"Shizuo!" That was Shinra, having identified the source of the red. The doctor rushed instantly forward, disregarding the blows that he received from Izaya on the way, and dropped down beside the blonde. "Shizuo! Shizuo!"

The blonde's neck was gushing blood; it was slowly staining through his white shirt as he sat, looking bewilderedly into the torrent of flapping wings and at Izaya within it. Shinra whipped a roll of bandages out of his pocket, trying desperately to begin dressing the wound, but Shizuo stood before he could.

"Shizuo! You're in no condition—!" he tried, but Shizuo shoved him aside with surprising force. Shinra cried out as he went sprawling, and Celty rushed to his side.

"You... you slit my _throat_..." Shizuo whispered, taking a heavy step toward Izaya. The dark-haired man let out an unearthly shriek, wings targeting the figure approaching him. But Shizuo didn't wince as he was battered, just took another step forward.

"You... unforgivable... _shit_..." Shizuo balled one hand into a fist at his side, then brought it up to eye-level. "We haven't had a fight this serious in ages, have we?"

Again Izaya screamed, but his voice was growing hoarse. And, as Shizuo grew nearer, the sizzling tears flowing down his face became clearly visible. The blonde smiled slightly.

"We should do this more often. I'm out of shape, it seems."

Izaya lunged, knife outstretched, but Shizuo dodged to the side. Then, with one mighty swing, he brought his fist slamming into the side of the other's face, sending him crashing through his own desk and smack into the opposite wall. The wings fell still, plastered wide with the impact, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Then, almost as quickly, Shizuo himself folded, crumpling to the ground as his neck continued to leak blood into the carpet.


	5. Not Supposed To

It was the first peaceful sleep that Izaya had had in days. He did not dream.

When he blinked open heavy-lidded eyes to the reality of his living room ceiling, he gave a disappointed sigh. He had never particularly enjoyed sleep, but it had felt so nice to get a break from the nightmares and the ache in his back.

 _My... back?_

His back felt strange... and yet not. It felt as though something had been set right. He flexed his shoulders experimentally... and felt a hell of a lot more than just his shoulder blades move.

"Izaya?"

Izaya looked over at Shinra's gentle question. But his eyes flicked past the doctor's kind face to the figure behind him, which was sitting limply in one of the larger living room armchairs. Izaya bolted upright, heedless of the unfamiliar weight that tried to pull him back down.

"Shizu—!"

Shizuo looked pale and battered, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. There was a swath of bandages drawn tightly around his neck.

"He's just sleeping," Shinra soothed. "He lost some blood, but he should be just fine. You know him, how—"

"Who did it?" Izaya's voice was strained, and Shinra fell silent. "Who did that to him?!" the informant demanded again, and the other bent his head.

"You did..." he said quietly, but then hurried to add, "Y-You just barely nicked his left carotid, though, so he really should be perfectly fine! N-No damage done!"

"I cut his _throat_ open," Izaya said, somewhere between disbelieving and angry. "That's isn't— things like that aren't supposed to happen! How can you say 'no damage done?!' What the hell was—?" He stalled suddenly, feeling something rise away from his spine in what he instinctively knew was an aggressive posture. Feeling his heart in his own throat, he turned mechanically to look over his shoulder.

His feathers were ruffled with agitation.

 _Feathers... black feathers..._

... wings...

"Oh... my...?"

Shinra, impossibly, brightened. "Yeah. I don't even know what to make of them. But at least you're coherent now. I wasn't sure if you'd come back to us with your mind intact, but here you are!"

"Come back to you?" Izaya demanded. "I was... I did that to Shizuo when..."

"We all saw it happen," Shinra confessed. "You were having some sort of fit, all wing-flapping and screaming, and Shizu-kun dove right in for fear that you'd hurt yourself."

"So I hurt him instead..." Izaya murmured, and felt his wings tremble in accordance with his feelings.

"You were entirely out of your own control," Shinra said soothingly. "He won't hold you responsible. Besides, it's mostly his own fault for jumping into the situation headfirst. You know how he is."

Izaya simply shook his head, then reached back and gripped one of his wings experimentally. He squeezed it, feeling the pressure as he would on any other part of his body. He pulled one of the raven feathers loose and winced; it was just a pinprick of pain, but it did hurt.

"They're pretty," Shinra observed, leaning in to examine the feather as well. When Izaya looked up at him, expression questioning and a bit displeased, the doctor shrugged and smiled. "I don't know why I'm surprised. Everything about you is pretty."

"Now is hardly the time..." Izaya muttered, but Shinra's familiarly inane chatter was comforting. It showed that things hadn't actually changed, at least not unbearably. "Do you have any idea...?" he trailed off, making a vague gesture with the feather.

Shinra shook his head. "I was hoping you might. Celty is chasing down an old book for me right now, though, and that might have a couple of leads."

"A book...?" Izaya echoed, then shook his head. He tried to stand, but the weight of the new limbs dragged him backwards. Shinra chuckled as he thumped back down, glaring disgruntledly at the wings sprawled out to either side of him.

"Having trouble?"

"No," Izaya replied, although it was obviously a lie. He propped his feet up on the coffee table. "I just don't feel like getting up yet."

"Of course you don't," Shinra murmured indulgently. "Want me to bring you lunch? You slept all through the night and halfway through the day."

Realizing that he was fairly famished, Izaya nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

When the doctor had vanished down the hallway, Izaya let himself melt against the couch cushions. His whole back was sore, but it wasn't the acute ache he had been suffering with for the past couple of days. It was, instead, the feeling of torn and over-taxed muscles.

 _They aren't used to supporting and controlling this set of massive wings, I suppose..._ He thought, and then turned to look over at one of the appendages in question. He stretched it out languidly, experimentally, until it was fully extended. It extended the length of the couch, easily six feet long— longer than he was tall.

"They are pretty, you know. Shinra's right about that."

Izaya jumped, turning to see that Shizuo had opened his eyes and was watching him. Before he could gather his thoughts to respond, the blonde spoke again.

"They were covered in blood. Shinra and Celty cleaned them up for you."

"Was it your blood or mine?" Izaya blurted out, before he could think the question through. Shizuo, unbothered, shrugged.

"Probably both."

"Well..." Running one hand along the glossy feathers, Izaya smiled slightly. "I'll have to thank them for getting me presentable."

The two were silent for a moment, with Izaya choking back things he intended to say when they were truly in private. Shinra returned with a plate of food in hand, looking surprised to find Shizuo conscious.

"Shizu-kun! It's good to see that you're awake. You should eat, too. I'll go back and grab another serving."

"Thanks," the blonde said easily, as Shinra handed Izaya the plate and then scurried back toward the kitchen.

"Here." Izaya held out the food. "You can have it. I'll wait."

Shizuo smiled at the somewhat awkward gesture. But instead of taking the plate, he rose and crossed over to where Izaya was sitting, plopping down on the cushion in front of the outstretched wing.

"Let's just share it until Shinra gets back," he suggested, picking up a piece of meat with the provided chopsticks and holding it out.

Izaya, after a moment of hesitation, opened his mouth and let himself be fed. The kindness in Shizuo's eyes was almost unnerving in its intensity. The blonde took a bite himself while Izaya chewed— deliberately slowly, so that he had an excuse not to speak.

"Did you miss m...?" Shinra's playful question trailed off in an all-too-pleased smile as he caught Izaya mid-bite, and the informant felt his ears grow hot. His wings, too, reacted involuntarily to his embarrassment, drawing closer to his body; the extended one knocked accidentally into Shizuo, and he quickly straightened it again. "Look at this cute little domestic scene I've stumbled upon!"

"Well, we needed to do something while we waited for you to bring the right amount of food," Izaya pointed out bitingly, although his ruffled feathers gave him away.

"Well-well," Shinra chirped, holding the plate on one palm and placing the other on his hip, "I don't know if I want to give you this after all, not if it'll disturb such a charming scene!"

"A doctor withholding food from his patients because it would _disturb a cute scene_ ," Izaya commented with mock interest. "What a fascinating little bit of humanity."

Shinra relented at that, coming over with the other plate and presenting it. Izaya took it, but Shizuo didn't move from the spot he occupied. So, after a moment of indecision, Izaya gave in and leaned into him, that outstretched wing curling in just slightly in something that was almost like an embrace, and they ate like that in silence.


	6. Not Every Day

_(A/N) Gdi Shizuo you big cheezy cuddly-ass teddy bear..._

 _I can't remember if I mentioned earlier, but some of the explicit content in this fic will be very, very plot-relevant, some of it will be completely gratuitous, and a fair amount will fall somewhere in between. This is actually my very first time incorporating NSFW scenes into a serious plot, so I hope I did alright with the balance. ^^;;_

 _Thank you guys for your continued readership! Q^Q_

* * *

By the time both boys had finished eating, Shinra had fully excused himself from the scene. Izaya had the vague sensation of wanting more food, but the hunger had quieted to an easily ignorable intensity. They sat in silence for another moment and then, in true awkward-boy fashion, began speaking at exactly the same moment.

"An apology wouldn't be—"

"I'm sorry about—"

Both stalled; looked at one another; laughed slightly.

"You're a piece of work, Flea," Shizuo said, reaching around and gripping the wing behind him. "What the hell are you doing, springing shit like this on us?"

"Sorry," Izaya said jokingly, jerking his wing free. "I guess I'm just a bit higher above humanity than even I thought."

They laughed again, but the sound caught in Izaya's throat. He let himself fall forward slightly, his forehead bumping into Shizuo's chest.

"Sorry..." he said again, still lightheartedly; then again, slightly less so, "Sorry." And then it was a broken whisper as he gripped Shizuo's shirt with one hand. "Sorry..."

"It's nothing..." the blonde murmured flippantly. That only made Izaya tighten his grip.

"I cut your throat!" he said, then his breath hitched. "I'm sorry... you were trying to... to keep me from hurting _myself_ , and..."

"C'mon, we play at stuff like this—" Shizuo tried to say, but Izaya cut him off.

"But this wasn't a game! This was... I was really trying to _kill_ you...!"

Pausing for a moment, Shizuo looped his arms around Izaya's shoulders. His hands hung between where the strange wings had their origin, and he smiled when he noticed it.

"This is too much..." he murmured fondly. "Come on. You can't show _this_ much remorse and still be my hated enemy."

Izaya chuckled, his shoulders shaking unsteadily, but didn't respond. So Shizuo moved back slightly, running his hands down Izaya's sides until he was able to slip them beneath his thighs. The dark-haired man stiffened.

"What are you...?"

"Hush," Shizuo murmured, then lifted Izaya for a moment and slipped underneath him. It was a more awkward position than usual, considering that Izaya still had his back against the couch to support his wings, but Shizuo folded his legs so that he was almost cross-legged to make it work.

"Here..." The blonde took Izaya's arms and wrapped them around his neck, then leaned down to kiss him. Izaya fought it for a moment, but eventually gave in and kissed back. "I forgive you, okay? There was nothing to forgive to begin with, but I forgive you anyway, okay?"

"Okay..." Izaya murmured, then let his head hang back as Shizuo lavished attention on his neck and exposed chest. "Oh... okay..."

Shizuo smiled, a little bit amusedly and a little bit tenderly. "Okay then." He moved his hands lower, undoing the button and zipper on Izaya's pants. The informant wriggled, lifting his hips and bringing one leg at a time up to his chest to help Shizuo remove them completely. Getting the blonde's own pants off without breaking their embrace proved a little bit tricker, but somehow they managed it, and his shirt quickly followed.

"You really... want to...?" Izaya asked softly, his wings fluffing and shuddering slightly as he did. His ears were hot, and Shizuo smiled as he brushed the other's dark hair back behind one of their reddened tips.

"Why the hell wouldn't I? It isn't every day you get the chance to fuck a real-life fallen angel, much less a fallen angel that you love more than life itself."

That made Izaya smile slightly, and he reignited the kiss. Shizuo laughed lightly into his mouth, then drove forward with both his body and tongue, pressing Izaya more firmly against the couch. His hands ran down along the informant's narrow waist and hips, one taking hold of his cock and stroking it tenderly. Izaya gasped into his mouth, feeling his wings rustle as he did so.

Shizuo groped with the lube hidden beneath the couch cushion, shuddering as the cold stuff touched his dick and quickly rubbing at it to warm it. Izaya shivered as the chilled thing brushed his stomach, then gasped as Shizuo's grip on him tightened.

"Are you okay to go right for it?" Shizuo asked softly, and Izaya nodded. Wiping his lube-slicked hand on the couch carelessly, the blonde ran both his palms down Izaya's lower back. He paused, taking a moment to fondle and massage his partner's backside before lifting him up again.

Izaya moaned quietly as he was lowered onto the other's cock. As it went deeper, though, he got progressively louder and louder, pain and pleasure twining around one another in his voice. His wings tensed and curled inward as he forced other muscles to relax lest they tear. Shizuo was careful to control the speed by which they came together, knowing there was far too great a size difference between them to be careless.

Izaya's voice petered out as he sunk the last inch or so onto Shizuo, and he rested his forehead against the blonde's shoulder, panting. He shifted, trying to get used to the massive cock now inside him, but he only ended up moaning louder as a dozen or more sensitive spots were brushed all at once. Shizuo smiled at the reaction, then rolled his own hips forward.

Izaya cried out at the feeling, his nails digging into Shizuo's shoulders and wings curling until they almost cocooned both boys in feathers. Shizuo let his hands glide up Izaya's back, tracing his spine with teasing fingers before finding the roots of both his wings.

"I love you."

Shizuo said it as he jerked his hips again, making Izaya give a whimpering moan as he clung to the blonde tighter than ever. One of Izaya's hands found the bandages wrapped around the other's neck, and his next moan was accompanied by a soft sob.

"Shi... Shizu... chan...!"

Shizuo moved his hips again, picking up a more consistent rhythm this time. Izaya's cock was pressed between their stomachs, and Shizuo could feel the wetness of precum on his skin. He drove into Izaya harder, drawing a hitched wail from him.

"Shizu-chan...!"

"I love you." Again Shizuo said it— murmured it against Izaya's neck. His fingers were working slowly in the smallest feathers that grew right at the base of Izaya's wings, and the strange appendages were trembling beneath his touch. "I love you. No matter what, Izaya. I love you."

Izaya, with a choked exclamation that was half scream and half sob, came. Shizuo thrust once more, then twice, then followed right behind with a throaty groan. Pulling out slowly, he slunk off the couch and sunk to his knees, licking the thick seed off other's skin. Izaya, panting raggedly, gripped Shizuo's hair with both hands as the blonde took his cock in his mouth, licking it clean tenderly. Izaya fairly keened as he sucked on the head for a moment before releasing it.

It wasn't common for the two of them to be silent after such an encounter— snarking and quipping was much more their custom —but no particularly appropriate words came to either of their minds. So Shizuo crawled back onto the couch and opened his arms. Izaya went to him.

It took a bit of finagling with the wings, but eventually they were both comfortable enough to relax into one another. Izaya's head rested against Shizuo's chest, arms laid casually across him. One wing had ended up stretched across the coffee table, and the other was draped over the back of the couch. Shizuo, for his part, held him in a loose embrace.

And it was like that, with a wordlessness that was so unlike them and yet so welcome, that they fell asleep.


	7. Disrupted Sleepings

_(A/N) Yesyes, two smutty chapters in a row. Because._

 _Nobutreally. I really tried to use these early chapters to establish the actual foursome relationship, since it's so integral to the fic (and so unusual, I think). And as a NSFW fic, that includes, well... /blushes quietly_

 _Please do let me know what you guys think, about that as well as the fic in general! I know I'm working through a backlog of chapters right now, but reviews really are my lifeblood and driving force. Also, a million thanks to those who have already followed, faved, and reviewed! Q^Q  
_

* * *

He was falling again.

A scream bubbled up in Izaya's throat, but when he opened his mouth all that came out was blood— bright red blood.

 _My... blood…_

Angels weren't supposed to bleed. They weren't supposed to bleed. It just didn't happen. Angels weren't supposed to bleed.

I'm _not supposed to bleed...!_

He finally managed to make a sound, but it wasn't a scream as he had intended. It was a strangled gurgling that left him breathless with horror, and he reached up to touch his throat.

It was torn, the flesh ragged and raw against the pads of his fingers. He gasped, but again it didn't come out right; he wheezed, trying to get air into his lungs and failing.

 _No... no...!_ He tried again to scream. _No...! I don't... want...!_

"I don't want to die!"

Shizuo bolted upright at the sudden scream, sending Izaya sprawling. And then he really _was_ falling, wings and other limbs flailing as he crashed against the coffee table with a shriek of terror. Instantly Shizuo was up, but on his way to Izaya's side he accidentally stepped on one of the fallen boy's wings.

Izaya shrieked again, his eyes wide as he whipped up both wings, unbalancing Shizuo and sending him crashing down, too. By this time the bedroom door was flung wide, both Shinra and Celty rushing onto the scene.

"Shizu-kun! Iza-chan!"

Izaya had both his hands up to his throat, his eyes wide. "Shi... zu..." he murmured, and then scrambled forward on his hands and knees, wings dragging awkwardly behind him. "Shizu-chan! Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine," the blonde huffed, picking himself up and accepting Izaya into an embrace as the other came toward him. "I'm more worried about you, shrieking suddenly like that. Nightmare?"

"Yes..." Izaya admitted, then shook his head. "But that's no excuse!"

"I threw you off me and then stepped on your wing," Shizuo pointed out, just slightly amused. "I deserved to get tossed much farther."

"You're both taking your fair share of beatings tonight, hmm?" Shinra observed lightly, and Celty held up her own input.

"Come to bed, both of you. You'll catch cold sleeping naked on the couch."

Shizuo laughed and then nodded, taking Izaya's hand and helping him to his feet. As the information dealer staggered, he realized with a sense of dread that he hadn't actually tried to walk with his new limbs.

"Are you okay?" Shizuo asked, and Izaya steeled himself.

"Fine, fine," he said, trying to sound certain. "What do you take me for, some newborn baby who can't even walk?" But, despite his brave words, he managed to take all of two steps before he nearly fell sideways, grabbing for Shizuo's shoulder to support himself.

The blonde rolled his eyes, willingly lending himself as a stabilizer as they made their slow way to the bedroom. Izaya felt himself beginning to steady as they went; he could almost manage on his own by the time they reached the bed and felt a wave of relief at the speed of improvement.

But the sight of the bed made his stomach clench with anxiety all over again.

"I'm not at all sure that this'll work out," he said, and Shinra gave him a playful shove that sent him tumbling forward onto the mattress. Although his fingers, arms completely outstretched in front of him, didn't touch the headboard, his wings hung off either side if the king-size mattress by a sizable margin.

"What, we're just going to kick you out of the bed because you've sprouted some inconveniently large wings?" Shinra asked, and Izaya made an unintelligible reply into the mattress.

"Try tucking them as close to your spine as you can." Celty lifted Izaya's head by his hair to force him to read the message, and the information dealer dragged himself into a somewhat sitting position.

"Alright..." he said, a bit uncertainly, and so tried. He managed to get them somewhat folded, but his muscles protested and trembled when he tried to pull them in closer.

"You just don't have the strength in your back muscles," Shinra observed, putting one palm against Izaya's skin to feel the movements of the muscles he was talking about. "You'll get better at controlling them with time. Here..." He used his hands to manually bend both wings in further, and Izaya looked back at him in surprise. "Does that hurt?"

"No."

"So see?" Shinra said with a smile. "They're made to fold in like this, you just don't have the strength to manage it yet. Don't worry about it. Focus on getting the muscles of your back stronger if you want to speed up the process, but it'll also just happen naturally."

Feeling slightly better, Izaya let himself be laid down, guided on one side by Shinra and the other by Celty. "At least let me sleep on the side," he protested softly. "If they unfurl while I'm asleep—"

"Don't be ridiculous," Shizuo cut him off gruffly, flopping down and making the whole bed bounce. "You always sleep in the middle. It'd be weird as hell to have you on the side."

Still looking fully uncomfortable with the idea, Izaya let himself be tucked in and then nuzzled between Shinra and Shizuo, with Celty behind Shinra. He had a fleeting notion to try to stay awake, but he knew that that wasn't an option. His eyes were already closing despite himself.

"You all insisted..." he murmured, and then yawned. "If one of you ends up on the floor, it isn't my fault."

... ... …

Izaya was shivering.

Shinra couldn't sleep, not with that sort of thing going on right next to him. So he propped himself up on one elbow, careful not to wake Celty, asleep with her back to him. Waking Shizuo was considerably less of concern— that would take nothing short of an earthquake.

Izaya's face was twisted with fear, something that Shinra found both adorable and troublesome. His wings, although still folded against his back, shuddered, and the doctor lay a hand on one of the feathered appendages.

Izaya jolted awake at the touch, and Shinra tightened his grip before the wing could unfurl and hit him. He smiled soothingly when Izaya looked over at him, but that didn't stop the information dealer from shaking his head and trying to climb out of bed.

"Hey...!" Shinra called softly, grabbing both of Izaya's wings and dragging him forcibly back. The other might have fought, but his balance was still off and he wasn't too keen on waking the others, either. So he let himself be pulled back, and then lay obediently still as Shinra crawled up onto his chest, his wings folded strangely beneath him. "Hey. Where do you think you're going?"

"This obviously isn't working," the information dealer murmured. "I can't sleep, and I'm keeping you awake."

"Stop it," Shinra told him, tracing his collarbone with deft, distracted fingers. "I can feel you shaking. It's the nightmares, isn't it?"

Izaya paused, then shrugged. "Maybe."

Shinra smiled kindly, then leaned down and kissed the other. "Don't worry. Stay. Don't leave. Stay here. I promise, you'll sleep better here than in your office."

Izaya grimaced. "And you? You won't sleep a wink."

"Since when are you so stupidly selfless?" Shinra whispered, amused. "Never mind me. I'm used to pulling all-nighters."

Izaya still looked uncomfortable, but he let Shinra trail kisses down his chest and stomach, hands gliding over his hips and down his upper legs. He paused when the doctor came to _it_ , kissing around the base before running a light, teasing tongue along his length.

"You want to do this _now_?"

"It always helps you sleep, right?" Shinra brought himself back up to Izaya's level on the bed, keeping himself propped up on his elbows so as not to put more weight on the wings trapped under the other.

"Yes," Izaya admitted finally, wrapping his arms around Shinra's shoulders. The doctor smiled, less manically and more kindly.

"See then? What's the problem?" Shinra traced circles around Izaya's nipples, making the other stiffen slightly.

"No problem..." he sighed, then moaned lightly.

"Perfect." Shinra lowered himself again and took Izaya deep, swallowing and making the winged man's back arch against the mattress. Hollowing his cheeks and bobbing his head, Shinra worked quickly and efficiently to coax Izaya up and up and up, closer and closer to a climax. The informant's hips jerked upwards, trying to thrust into the hot, wet cavern of Shinra's mouth, and the doctor moved his tongue slowly and lavishly along the length in response.

"Aaah… Shinra…" Izaya groaned, reaching down to fist his hands in the other's ruffled hair.

The doctor didn't, of course, reply, sucking tenderly and teasingly at the cock in his mouth and swirling his tongue at the base. Izaya's head tilted back, mouth stretching wide in a silent plea for mercy as his hips and legs began to tremble uncontrollably.

Shinra didn't let up; if anything, he intensified his attentions, pushing Izaya all the way over the edge of orgasm and milking him through it. The aftershocks radiated through the informant's body, wings struggling to open against the mattress and pelvis thrusting uselessly upward as Shinra drank him up with relish.

Panting and whimpering, Izaya let his whole body go limp against the mattress as the doctor finally released him. But then Shinra's come-flavored lips were on his, his coated tongue playing with Izaya's, and the informant tasted himself strongly in the kiss. As the kiss lengthened and deepened, sloppy and tender and sensual all at once, Izaya felt his legs lifted; still slightly shaky, he didn't fight it, just tightened his grip— one hand in Shinra's hair and the other wrapped around the doctor's shoulders.

"You know I love you, right?" Shinra whispered, without breaking the kiss. "Always. Forever. Izaya." There was something wet pressing against his tight entrance, and Izaya's own cock was aching with the desire to get hard again. He closed his eyes and, unable to summon the words to reply, kissed back more fiercely than ever.

Shinra entered him slowly, hands stroking up and down his sides and hips. Izaya lifted his hips to give the doctor easier access, moaning lightly into the kiss. There were tears gathering in his eyes— tears of desperation, overstimulation and overwhelming emotion. He tried not to cry out as Shinra moved gently back and forth, taking his time with each thrust.

With a gasp, the doctor came. He was almost silent, save for a soft keening that barely reached Izaya's ears. The informant felt his own body shudder as he was filled with hot seed, a choked whimper dragged from him as his exhausted cock throbbed. And then Shinra was pulling out, repositioning him so that he could press Izaya's face into his chest. His hand ran along one of the new wings, and the man they belonged to shivered.

"Now relax," Shinra murmured, although they both stiffened as the blanket was pulled up around them.

"If you're both quite finished," Celty spelled out with one finger on Shinra's back, and the doctor chuckled tiredly.

"I think so. Thanks, Celty."

The dullahan leaned up over him, tucking the blanket around Izaya and tracing, "Sleep well. Wake me if you need anything," on his chest.

"Thanks."

The dullahan inclined her neck slightly, then sunk back down on her own side of the bed and rolled over, her back to the three boys. Shinra laughed again.

"See?" he asked, fingers playing soothingly in both feathers and hair. "We're all looking out for you, okay?"

"... Okay," Izaya sighed, then nuzzled into his chest. "Okay. Thanks."

They both fell asleep like that, with one fully expecting nightmares and the other expecting to be woken again to comfort him. But perhaps he was just too tired; or perhaps it was the presence of the other three on the bed. Because Izaya slept peacefully, and Shinra didn't wake again.


	8. Platonic Intentions

_(A/N) I pointed this out at this point in the original posting, so I would like to again take this opportunity to state (if you haven't already made the jump) that this is a canonverse AU/canon-divergent setting, probably taking place close to the first part of the second season of the anime; more details on the divergence from canon later. Author!non is, at least at the moment, an anime-only viewer, and so finds herself unable to tackle certain points of canon in this fic. Luckily, the majority of this fic will be far enough from canon so that that won't be an issue. But yes, in case you were wondering._

 _That being said, please enjoy the latest installment, and thank you for your continued readership!_

* * *

It was hunger that woke Izaya several hours later, and his first thought was surprise at the feeling. He sat up drowsily, one hand at his aching middle, to find that Shinra and Celty were already up. Shizuo, to his right, looked freshly-woken.

"Damn, is that your stomach?" he asked, poking at Izaya's protesting belly. "That's new."

Izaya, hot with embarrassment and irritated by the hunger itself, smacked his hand away and scrambled off the other side if the bed. His wings did throw him off balance, but he managed to keep upright without help, and tried to tuck his wings in as tightly as he could. Their tips still dragged on the ground.

"I'm kidding, I'm just kidding," Shizuo huffed, coming up beside him as they made their way into the living room. "Come on. I'll bet Shinra's already started breakfast."

Izaya could _smell_ that Shinra had started breakfast, and that made him all the more impatient. On the way out of the bedroom, though, they passed where Izaya's office door had once been, and the information dealer paused. He sighed wistfully.

"And I liked that chair, too..."

Shizuo stopped as well, staring over Izaya's shoulder and into the wrecked room. The chair that Izaya was lamenting the loss of was in pieces to one side, but more spectacular was the desk— an expensive chunk of ebony wood that was now in splinters and strewn across the floor. There was blood splattered across the walls and carpets, giving the whole scene a horror-movie appearance. This was only aided by the caution tape that _someone_ who thought they had a sense of humor— most likely Shinra —had stretched across the entrance.

"Hey…" Shizuo began awkwardly, but Izaya was already walking again. On his way past the linen closet he grabbed a housecoat, wrapping it around his waist in an improvised skirt when it became obvious that it wouldn't be able to accommodate his new wings. The blonde grudgingly figured that he would end up saying something stupid if he tried to say anything at all, so he just followed Izaya's example and tossed a robe around his own shoulders.

When they came into view of the kitchen, it became obvious that the eagerly-anticipated breakfast was also an impromptu cooking lesson for Celty, who was standing at the stove with Shinra wrapped around her from behind. The dullahan wore a loose robe of shadows, while Shinra was clad only in pajama pants beneath the familiar lab coat.

"Good morning!" the doctor called cheerfully. Shizuo acknowledged him, although Izaya was preoccupied with trying to make the kitchen table chairs cooperate with a twelve-foot wingspan. An attempt to get them tucked up behind him capsized the chair, and he hit the ground with an undignified yelp. After that he just gave up, sitting normally and letting the wings hang down and rest, unfurled, on the ground to either side.

Celty came over with three plates, one for each boy, and held up, "Tell me what you think, alright?"

"Looks delicious," Shizuo said, cutting into a fried egg. "Thanks for the meal."

Izaya nodded slightly before tucking in hurriedly to his own food. Celty had definitely improved, even if the flavor of the miso soup was still slightly off. He ate it anyway, along with the sampling of eggs, bacon, rice and vegetables he had been presented with.

"This is your best attempt yet," he told the dullahan with a honest smile, and the substance from her neck began to billow like it did when she was flustered. "Have any more of it?"

While Celty hurried to get him another helping, Shizuo and Shinra exchanged a sideways glance. It was often troublesome to get the information dealer to eat a full meal at all, and suddenly he was asking for seconds, which he proceeded to eat with just as much enthusiasm as the first helping.

"... Would you let me examine you properly today?" Shinra eventually got up the nerve to ask. Izaya rolled his eyes.

"As long as you're asking about actual examination and no crazy medical-play. You had your shot at that last night."

"Last night?" Shizuo echoed, with the distinct impression that he had missed something. But Shinra only laughed.

"Yes, yes, _actual_ examination. I want to see what's going on under your skin. Your body is demanding a lot of energy for something— that's why you're so hungry."

"Fine by me," Izaya said, through a mouthful of egg. "I'm sure as hell not going to work today, anyway. I'll do some work from home if the mood strikes me, but I don't feel like explaining these," he rustled his wings, "to anyone, least of all Namie."

"Excellent!" Shinra clapped excitedly, then finished off the last of his own breakfast.

"Well, some of us have actual nine-to-fives," Shizuo grumbled, draining his bottle of milk and slamming it down before standing. While the other three finished eating and chatted about inconsequential things, he vanished and then reemerged five or six minutes later, face washed and teeth brushed and hair somewhat combed, dressed in his usual bartender getup.

"Have a good day," Celty offered; he looped one arm around her waist and kissed her neck by way of reply.

"I get a kiss too!" Shinra called out, bouncing to his feet, and Shizuo obliged with a chuckle. Then the blonde went to Izaya, who hadn't stood.

"Aren't you going to at least give me a proper farewell?" he asked, and Izaya raised his wings slightly.

"It's too much of a hassle to get up at the moment." But he held out his arms for a hug regardless, and Shizuo huffed.

"Only today," he said, "because of circumstances," as he bent down.

"Come home soon," Izaya whispered close to his ear, and tightened his grip around the blonde's shoulders. "If Tom will let you go early, come home. Don't worry about the money, just come home as soon as you can."

Softening visibly, Shizuo shifted the embrace slightly and straightened, pulling Izaya up and out of his chair. The information dealer gave a soft cry of objection, wrapping his legs around Shizuo's waist for stability and leaving his wings limp to drag on the ground. Shizuo kissed him once, sweetly, then set him back down on his chair and headed out the door.

"I should go, too." Celty changed quickly from the loose shadow robe to her usual suit. "I only have a few deliveries today, so I'll be home shortly."

"Hurry back!"

"Don't be too long!"

The two boys waved as she vanished after Shizuo, then Shinra turned with glinting eyes to his test subject. Izaya held up both his hands.

"Let me finish my breakfast, first!"

Shinra, to his credit, did wait patiently until the other had cleared his plate. But the second the last bite was swallowed he sprang up, grabbing Izaya's hand and pulling him up.

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Don't yank my arm off!"

"But this is so exciting!" the doctor gushed. "Examining a winged humanoid is something I never even imagined! How have the muscles adapted? Are your bones reshaping to accommodate the change? Will you actually be capable of flight at some point? I can't wait!"

Izaya smiled indulgently, letting himself be pulled along; as they descended into the basement, most of his attention was taken just trying to keep his balance. The basement housed all of Shinra's supplies, equipment, sometimes his test subjects and occasionally his patents. For now it was deserted; he had been doing mostly laboratory study for weeks. Izaya sat obediently on the examination table that the other indicated.

"Lie on your stomach for me, would you? I'll take a physical look, first."

Izaya obeyed as Shinra hopped up beside him, then straddled his hips. "Are sure you've got platonic intentions?" the winged man asked teasingly, feeling something hard pressing against him from behind. Shinra laughed lightheartedly.

"I can't help it. I'm excited."

Izaya let himself relax against the table, feeling Shinra's slightly chilled hands press into his back. It felt to him like he was getting a massage as the doctor examined each muscle with eager fingers. It felt lovely, especially on the sore bases of his wings and his aching shoulders.

"You can just do that forever..." he murmured into his folded arms, and Shinra chuckled.

"I'll do it as often as you let me, I promise. This is... fascinating! I'm feeling muscles I don't even recognize...!"

Izaya gave a soft murmur, less than concerned with that than with how good the rubbing felt. But eventually Shinra stopped, sitting back slightly and reaching over to his desk. As he did so his erection ground into Izaya harder, and the informant had to laugh.

"You're such a nerd."

"Don't judge." Hopping down from the table, Shinra grabbed first one of Izaya's wings and then the other, folding them up so that they didn't drag on the ground. "Feel like letting me take some x-rays?"

"Of course... do what you want."

"I'm going to inject some dye into your veins for an MRI too, okay?"

"Fine, fine... Just rub my shoulders and you can do anything... anything _short_ of cutting me open, obviously."

"Aww... man. Just take all the fun out of it, why don't you?"


	9. Of Science

_(A/N) I wanted to see if I could pull off Shizuo/Shinra, especially since that's like… the one pairing within the foursome I never even considered before writing this. I'm fairly pleased with myself. Also, there won't be_ as _much time for smut in later, plot-heavy chapters, so I shall seize the opportunities where I see them with no shame._

 _ALSO I am a biology major, and as such must apologize. So Shinra's self-indulgent anatomy rants during this chapter are actually author!non's self-indulgent anatomy rants._

 _(Double update today, woo~~ please do leave a review if you're enjoying! It would mean the world. ;w;)_

* * *

Countless scans later, Izaya was face down and fast asleep on the examination table. Shinra, alternatively, was bent over his desk, X-rays plastered to a glowing screen beside him and MRI images laid out before him.

He had an impossibly hard erection and a somewhat terrifying smile stretched across his face.

"Found something interesting, I take it?"

Shizuo's soft voice made the doctor jump, but he turned and nodded eagerly. "This is absolutely incredible!" he gushed, keeping his voice low and trotting over to Shizuo. In his excitement, he leaned up and kissed the other, who willingly reciprocated. When they broke apart, he spoke again. "We'll wait until Celty comes back before we wake him, and then I'll tell all three of you at once."

"God, your science boners are fucking impossible," Shizuo commented, moving his leg slightly against the cock pressing into it. Shinra grinned.

"Are you suggesting something? Because I'm raring to put it to use."

"I'll take a pass for now," Shizuo said, patting the doctor's head. "Maybe later."

"Don't be like that..." Shinra pouted. "Only Celty is allowed to play the 'not in the mood' card." He ground his hips against Shizuo's, and smiled when the blonde groaned slightly.

"Oh, come on..." he muttered, then grabbed Shinra's hair and tipped the doctor's head back. Eyes playful behind his glinting glasses, Shinra let himself be kissed roughly, whimpering against the blonde's lips.

"You're so easy..." the doctor whispered, and Shizuo backed him up until he was pinned against his own desk.

"Shut up," the blonde growled, then grabbed for the bottle of lube kept in Shinra's pencil cup. Shinra stopped him, though, laying the lube to the side.

"Let me, first."

Shizuo drew back slightly, letting Shinra drop down onto his knees. "You like doing this altogether too much," he said teasingly, as the doctor undid his belt and pulled his pants down. Shinra responded by lapping playfully at the slit, and the blonde hissed slightly.

"I dare you to complain," the doctor purred, teasing the head of Shizuo's cock with his lips.

"Fuck..." Shizuo groaned, and Shinra responded by taking his whole cock into his mouth.

His tongue worked busily as Shizuo hardened in his mouth, and he whimpered as the blonde grabbed his hair and pulled hard. His own cock was straining against the seam of his pants, the friction when he moved even an inch driving him wild.

"Nng... fuck, Shinra...!" Shizuo groaned, his breath coming faster. "Deeper..."

Shinra obeyed, moaning throatily as Shizuo touched the back of his throat. He swallowed, dragging a hoarse curse from the blonde.

"Yes... ahhh fuck...! Aah...!"

Smiling, Shinra drew back, scraping his teeth along Shizuo's tender skin as he went. The blonde groaned loudly, tightening his grip on Shinra's hair briefly before releasing it. Then the doctor turned, bending over his desk and lifting his lab coat up over his back.

"I want you..." he breathed, rutting helplessly against his desk. "I want you now... _now_ , Shizu-kun...!"

"Who am I to refuse such a cute request?" Shizuo growled, pulling the doctor's pants down just enough to reveal his supple ass in full. His length remained clothed, still rubbing against his desk and chaffing on the cloth between him and the wood.

Going for the lube again, Shizuo worked one and then two fingers into a squirming Shinra beneath him. The doctor whimpered and squeaked as Shizuo scissored them, stretching him, before inserting a third finger. Shinra wriggled impatiently, but he knew better than to rush through the preparation with Shizuo.

At last a fourth finger was comfortably inserted and Shizuo removed his hand. Shinra felt more lube being applied and tried his hardest to not be irritated. Shizuo was only worried about hurting him, he reminded himself, and that—

All the words flew from his mind as Shizuo's cock slammed into him, making him wail suddenly. He felt his whole body tingle as Shizuo gripped the back of his neck with one strong hand, holding them steady with the other against the desktop.

"Ready?" he whispered, his breathing labored, and Shinra have a breathy laugh.

"If I'm not then too bad, is that it?"

"Probably. I don't think I can hold back anymore."

"Then just do it. I can take it, you know that."

Grinning, Shizuo obeyed without any more words, pulling out and slamming back in. Shinra wailed again, forgetting for a moment that Izaya was asleep across the room, arching his back and grinding his own cock against the wood beneath him.

Shizuo's thrusts picked up speed, moving the desk itself with each and making Shinra arch his back. The doctor was sobbing out incoherent things, talkative even in the throes of passion, and that made Shizuo grin more fiercely. He was getting closer and closer, his skin hot and his breath coming in ragged gasps, but he pushed himself to go harder and faster for the benefit of the one beneath him. The wood of the desk began to crack and splinter with the force, but neither particularly noticed.

Shinra hit his limit first, his muscles clenching around Shizuo as he came and coaxing the blonde to his own climax. They both leaned into the desk for a moment to catch their breaths, still locked together, Shizuo cuddling into the man beneath him. But Shinra eventually pushed up, despite the blonde's soft protest.

"I've gotta go change," he said, although he kissed Shizuo as if by apology. "Celty'll yell if she catches me in soiled slacks _again_."

"Fine, fine..." Shizuo growled softly, then glanced over at where Izaya had been sleeping. The information dealer wasn't quite asleep anymore, and as Shizuo watched he stretched luxuriously, toes pointed and fingers reaching and wings trembling as he extended them fully out to either side. When he sat up, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand, he smiled slightly at Shizuo fumbling with his belt buckle.

"Getting me back for all the times _I've_ gotten some while _you're_ asleep?"

The blonde smiled back. "Just waiting for you to wake up, you lazy louse."

Izaya laughed, hopping off the exam table and shaking out his wings. When he straightened, his posture seemed better than it had been.

"I really hope that either you or Celty brought diner," he said, and Shizuo nodded.

"She was going to stop for some on her way home." As if on cue, the front door could be heard to open and then close, and all heads swiveled toward the staircase. "Well speak of the devil."

"Come on!" Shinra reappeared— having donned clean pants —and bounced excitedly toward the stairs, arms filled with X-rays and other papers. "Come on, I've got so much to tell you guys! Let's go, let's go!"

Shizuo and Izaya followed more calmly, the later huffing softly with the effort of climbing the steps. Shizuo offered his arm, but the winged man shook his head.

"I have to get used to them. They're heavy, but..." he rustled his feathers, "they already feel more manageable than yesterday. I'll get the hang of it in no time."

Celty was indeed waiting in the living room, takeout boxes laid out on the table. Shinra kissed her hello, although Izaya only gave a wave as he bypassed her in favor of the food. Within a few minutes, all four of them were seated around the table, Shinra's papers scattered among the takeout.

"Do you mind if I talk while we eat?"

Celty made a welcoming motion, and Shizuo nodded.

"Please do," Izaya said, through a mouthful of rice.

Shinra cleared his throat, then rustled around until he found the X-ray he was looking for. Using a portable backlight, he held it up.

"So this is what Iza-chan's back looks like. I couldn't get his whole wingspan in the view, but this is what the skeletal attachment looks like. You can see that there's a third process on the scapula, here, which forms a socket for the first major bone of the wing. Humans don't have this, and Izaya hasn't when I've X-rayed him in the past, so I can only assume its a brandy new part of the bone that formed when the wings started to grow."

"Can bone really reshape that fast?" Shizuo asked in amazement, and Shinra shrugged.

"Technically, no. But we've seen stranger biological anomalies, right?"

Celty socked him in the arm.

"So anyways..." the doctor continued, with a pouty look at the dullahan, "the structure of his wings is pretty consistent with that of larger bird species. The muscles of his back are somewhere between that of a human's and a bird's. He has about eight muscles in his back and shoulders alone— not counting the ones _in_ his wings —that humans shouldn't have. And they've all somehow managed to arrange themselves so that the movement of his arms isn't hindered at all by the addition of these new, wing-exclusive muscle groups, which was the first complication I expected to find. But that isn't the craziest of what I found when I was examining him."

"These were the muscles you were talking about strengthening?" Izaya asked through a mouthful of food, and Shinra nodded eagerly.

"Yes, exactly!" he said, and then motioned to the two cardboard boxes that Izaya had already emptied. "Also, the increase in appetite is completely consistent with the massive energy expenditure of this sort of bone remodeling and muscle development! And you haven't even let me get to the most unexpected part!"

"So spit it out, then!" Shizuo said good-naturedly, waving his chopsticks.

"See!" Shinra exclaimed, slamming an image of one of Izaya's bones onto the table. Shizuo and Celty peered down at it, but eventually the dullahan held up a simple statement.

"We don't know what we're looking at."

"Aah, but see!" the doctor crowed, pointing to the X-ray. "Even with wings this large, flight for humans should be impossible. You'd need at least seven or eight meters of wingspan, and even then you'd need to calculate for the mass of the wings themselves, but— I digress, I digress. Point is, he shouldn't be able to fly. But this long bone— Iza-chan's femur, to be exact —is actually beginning to hollow out, like a bird's! His bones are actually hollowing themselves out!" He picked up the X-ray only to slam it back down, then threw it high in the air. "Everything I've found, the muscles and the bones and the hollowing of the long bones, points to one thing: that Iza-chan's body is modifying itself so that he'll soon be able to actually fly!"

"Well I should hope so," Izaya said, eyebrows raised. "I'd better at least be able to _fly_ for all the inconvenience of these things."

"But why?" Shizuo asked, brow knitting. "Why Izaya? Why now? And what about the nightmares?"

"That's where I might be able to offer some explication," Celty said, and Shinra nodded to her. A book was slid across the table— an old book with a battered cover and hopelessly yellowed pages.

"'The Fall of Seraphim,'" Shizuo read aloud, "'a Memoir.' … You... have got to be kidding me."


	10. Seraphim

"'The Fall of Seraphim,'" Shizuo read, "'a Memoir.' You... have got to be kidding."

"But I'm not," Celty typed, a but huffily.

"I read this book years and years ago," Shinra put in. "It's the one that I asked Celty to track down last night."

"So this," the dullahan continued, "is how the author depicts Lucifer himself." She flipped through several pages until she reached an illustration, and pointed. Shizuo breathed an audible sigh of relief.

"That's definitely not him."

"No..." Several more pages were turned, and then Celty held up, "But look at this."

Izaya's feathers fluffed and rustled as he leaned in; Shizuo fell totally still and silent. For there on the sheet of paper, drawn in just to the right of the supposed Lucifer, was—

"That's me." Izaya's voice was a bit faint, and his wings rose fractionally.

"I thought it was absolutely hilarious that you had a fallen-angel look-alike when I read this back in the day," Shinra said. "Turns out— not so funny. It might just be true, instead."

"Read this," Celty indicated, passing the book to Shinra. "This passage here."

The doctor cleared his throat loudly, taking the book and beginning to read in an authoritative voice, "'Lucifer, The Fallen One, waged another battle against The Lord not long after The Great Flood. This time, the army of 200 Watchers accompanied and fought beside him under their leader, Semyaza.'"

Izaya had begun to tremble, but Shinra read on excitedly without pause; Shizuo noticed, however, and reached out to take Izaya's hand gently.

"'The Watchers, who had fathered the Nephilim, lent the strength of their hatred and embitterment to the battle. Many of God's Chosen were slain, their blood coloring the sands and flowing into the sea. Many Fallen perished as well, and the Watchers who fell shrieked in both joy at release from their earthly sentence and horror at the hell that awaited them.

"'Semyaza lent intelligence rather than strength to the deviant cause, and might easily be called a coward, watching from a safe height as his loyal a went into battle. I saw the absence of pain on his face when his lieutenant was slain. The battle was lost for the Fallen, and the guilty punished accordingly, myself and the trickster Semyaza, unable to slip away as was his custom, included.' Sounds pretty accurate.

"And that's where it ends," Shinra said, lowering the book. "From there it goes into an entirely different story. That's the only mention of Semyaza in the entire volume."

"Who... wrote that book?" Izaya's voice was strained, and his wings were shuddering violently.

"The... the author is listed as a... um..." Shinra flipped to the front of the book, "... Leza Zarchoph."

"Azazel..." Izaya growled, then gave a barking laugh that startled Shizuo. "That bastard... spilling my secrets... that's _my_ job, controlling secrets. I even control God's— nng!" He doubled over suddenly, wings convulsing and hands flying to clutch at his head. Instantly Shizuo was out of his seat, chair flying backwards.

"Izaya!"

Izaya opened his mouth as if to reply, but all that came out was a groan of pain. He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, his whole body heaving once; twice. Shizuo stooped, gripping a wing with one hand and a shoulder with the other.

"Izaya?!"

"Get... back..." Izaya wheezed, and when Shizuo didn't obey he shouted, "Get away from me, you idiot! I feel like I'm going to—!"

He didn't finish his statement, his whole body convulsing violently and the food he had so excitedly been eating coming back up his throat. He tried to choke it back, but it didn't exactly work, a bit of blood and vomit dripping down his chin for a moment before the rest came up anyway.

Shizuo, although his innermost thoughts and feelings about the whole situation were clear on his face, didn't back up or let go.

When Izaya had stilled, save for his heaving chest and shuddering wings, Shinra stepped forward.

"What was that? Did you remember—"

"Not now..." Izaya cut him off, his voice slightly rasping. "Aah... shit." He smiled miserably up at Shizuo, although it was still a crooked Izaya-type smile. "I'm sorry. Shit. Oh god, I fucking threw up on you. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," the blonde muttered. "You're worse off than me. Come on," he added, taking Izaya's arm. "Can you walk? We'll go get cleaned up."

"But—!" Shinra began to object, but Shizuo cut him off with a glare.

"He said 'not now.'" Taking Izaya around the shoulders, he guided him towards the bedroom, and Shinra could only sigh frustratedly as the door closed behind them.

"Aww man... I want to _know_...!"

"You'll get your chance to ask questions later," Celty said consolingly, although her next words were anything but. "For now you can clean up the table and what got on the floor."

"Whaaaat?!" Shinra objected despairingly, and Celty crossed her arms.

"You don't expect Izaya to do it, do you? And Shizuo's doing his share of clean up right now."

"And you?"

If someone could look disbelieving without a face, Celty did. "Me?" she held a hand up to her chest. "Are you saying... you'd make _me_ do it? How mean!"

And so Shinra, with another sigh, had no choice but to relent.

… … …

There were three bathrooms in the apartment, two equipped with showers and the master equipped with a bath. The later, as it turned out, was the only one that could accommodate a twelve-foot wing-span, and so that was the one that the blonde guided his winged companion to.

Izaya sat patiently, cross legged and naked, on the edge of the sink while Shizuo cleaned himself. Then, at the blonde's motion, he hopped down and climbed into the partially-filled tub, keeping his wings tucked somewhat close so that he would fit

Shizuo crouched down in front of him first, where the worst of the vomit was clinging to his skin. Izaya lifted his head unquestioningly, giving the blonde better access to his chest and neck. Shizuo's movements were quick and gentle as he washed the other, his chest and belly and legs.

"You really made a mess of yourself."

"And you."

"Yeah, and me. Thanks a bunch for that."

Shizuo got up, moving around to Izaya's back. After a moment of hesitation, he picked up one large wing and stretched it out. Izaya let him.

"Do you think I can just use regular soap on these?"

"Don't see why not."

Shrugging slightly, Shizuo lathered his hands and began rubbing at the thickly feathered appendage. Izaya shivered slightly.

"That feels... really good." He bent forward a bit, letting the wing stretch out further. Shizuo smiled.

"You're fucking spoiled, you know that?"

"Of course."

They lapsed into silence, Shizuo working steadily up the first wing. When he reached Izaya's back, he rubbed at the tense muscles for a moment before moving onto the next wing.

"You were remembering something, right?" Shizuo finally asked, and Izaya nodded.

"Yeah. But I'm sure as hell not telling that to Shinra."

"Why are you telling me, then?"

Izaya laughed lightly. "Because I know you won't press me for details."

Shizuo yanked playfully on the wing in his hands, although not hard enough to jerk Izaya's whole body. "I guess that's fair enough. Besides, knowing the contents of your stomach is already too much information for me."

"Sorry," Izaya said dryly, "I didn't realize you were so sensitive."

"Who the hell is okay with getting thrown up on?" the blonde retorted, but then both of them dropped the line of conversation as Izaya leaned back.

"Thanks."

"No problem. This is nothing, you know? We've been through worse together."

Izaya chuckled. "You sure about that? This is pretty… pretty serious," he finished vaguely.

"Remember the time you set my old place on fire?"

The information dealer choked on an unexpected laugh. "I forgot about that," he admitted, and Shizuo shoved his back playfully.

"And that time with the chimp? Remember, the one that escaped from Shinra's lab?"

"That was a bonafide _nightmare_ ," Izaya admitted. "Straight out of a horror movie."

Shizuo was smiling, then, and continued. "What about when Namie got all four of us on camera? Remember what she asked for in return for that damn sex tape?"

"That woman is the devil," Izaya growled. "I can't believe we caved to her demands…"

"She was going to distribute the thing!"

"Who cares? All four of us are stunning. It would have been quite a hit."

Shizuo shoved him again, and this time Izaya shoved back. There was a brief, splash-filled tussle, and then Izaya snugged abruptly against Shizuo's chest. The blonde, with a put-upon sigh, leaned back against the tub and put one arm around Izaya's back.

"So see?" he asked softly. "We'll make it through this the same way."

"I think finding out I'm a fallen angel is slightly different than my stupid secretary managing to record us fornicating, Shizu-chan." Izaya closed his eyes, then sighed. "I think I finally understand how Celty feels about her missing memories. I've existed… for so much longer than I ever knew. And all I have are nightmarish fragments and an old book to go off of."

"We'll get through it," Shizuo repeated simply, one hand rubbing soothing circles on Izaya's back. The angel shuddered with pleasure. "Okay? We're in this together. And if we're together, there's nothing we can't handle, okay?"

"Sure. Right. ... Okay."


	11. An Impromptu Slumber Party

_(A/N) The original author's note on this chapter was something about "holy hell part 10..." and now 30+ chapters later, haha..._

* * *

The dullahan was used to being the only one who would get up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. She didn't need as much sleep as the humans, after all, and often had other uses for the time. It wasn't at all unusual for her to just sit on the couch and think while her three boys were fast asleep in the next room over.

What was unusual was to find someone already up, and busy in the kitchen no less.

"Couldn't sleep?" Celty typed out, and Izaya shrugged.

"I was too hungry." He held up the words on his own phone screen. "I threw up most of my diner, if you remember. After my stomach settled, I realized I was starving."

There was a pause, and then Celty asked, "But that's not all it is, is it? It's also the nightmares. You don't want to go to sleep."

"How did you guess?" Izaya typed out, with a guilty smile.

"Because I know what its like," Celty replied, "being kept awake by nightmares. I've gone through it."

"It really isn't the most pleasant thing."

"No, not at all." Celty paused, then typed, "I'll sit up with you, if you want company."

"I'd really like that, actually," Izaya held up, his smile becoming a bit more honest. Celty stood beside him, leaning back against the counter as he finished preparing his eggs and rice, then accompanied him over to the table. They sat in silence for a moment as he ate, but eventually Izaya held up his phone again.

"You just said you know what it's like to be afraid to go to sleep. Well, I finally understand what it's like to be missing memories."

Celty's shadows billowed with surprise, but then she typed out, "I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

"I know I've said it before, but I haven't heard anything about your head." There was earnest regret in his eyes, and he probably wouldn't have said such a thing out loud. "I don't know if you believe me or not, but it's the truth."

"I didn't believe you at first, Orihara… but things have changed since we met." Celty seemed momentarily to struggle for words, then settled on, "We aren't just connected through Shinra anymore. We have our own bond."

"It's irritating," Izaya offered, with a slightly sour smile. "I could tell you almost anything else you wanted to know, but…" He shook his head. "This feeling… it's so… wrong, missing a whole other part of you. Before, I thought that it might be 'nice' if I could help you with your head, but… now that _I'm_ missing memories, too..."

He ran out of words; put his phone down. And Celty placed her hand over his.

"It's okay," she wrote on the back of his hand with one finger. "It's okay."

They sat like that for a moment, Izaya's gaze fixed on their overlapping hands. Celty was the first to stand, collecting his dishes and then holding up, "You have to sleep now."

"I don't want to," Izaya typed, then added as he stood, "You understand— you just said you did."

"I also understand how damaging sleep deprivation can be," the dullahan informed him, and then leaned into him. "Just give it a try."

"I'm scared." It was another thing that Izaya might never have admitted it out loud, but there it was on his phone screen.

And Celty tucked her phone away in favor of reaching forward, taking Izaya's face tenderly in both her hands. Her left drifted down, then rested on his shoulder.

"Alright," she wrote along his collarbone. "I'll sit up with you for a while longer, then."

Nodding, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against her shoulder. Her clothes vanished silently like so much mist, and her hands gently undid the clasp on his pants. Izaya stepped out of them, then backed up slightly.

"I trust the people I love," Celty said, and then typed, "that's how I manage. I even trust you, Orihara. I know that you would never allow the nightmares to come to pass. You have to trust us— Shinra and Shizuo and I. What happened is over and done with, and there's nothing we can do except comfort you about it. But none of us would ever allow such a thing to happen again. So trust us."

Izaya smiled— it was a strange smile for him, vulnerable and open. And he held up his phone.

"I'll try."

Celty moved forward wordlessly, as did her shadows. Izaya felt his mouth covered; was plunged into darkness as his eyes received the same treatment.

"Trust me." The words were traced on his skin with a soft touch. "We'll keep you safe. We'll keep you sane. Just close your eyes and relax, now."

And, regardless of the blindfold, Izaya obeyed.

Shadows wrapped around his back and wings, supporting rather than constraining, and he let himself relax into them. Celty's hands were warm as they brushed along his body, and he shivered slightly with the beginnings of pleasure.

One of the dullahan's hands went low, grasping his length and stroking gently. She took his wrist with the other hand, pulling his arm up to loop around her shoulders, and he obediently clung to her. Her breasts pressed against his chest, making his breath hitch. Holding them both steady, Celty slowly brought them together, her wet tightness surrounding him. She didn't thrust, but instead rotated her hips to create a gentle sort of friction— an intimate heat that gathered between them and made their hearts race in unison. Izaya panted softly into the gag, the shadows allowing air to move freely even if they blocked sound.

The orgasm, for them both, was somehow both intense and tender— there were no wails or scratching of nails on skin, and no real convulsions. But the overwhelming sensation was one of safety and security; one of love and heat and the friction of two bodies in the most intimate of contact. As Izaya caught his breath, Celty let her shadows slip away from him. Her hands were there, instead, to support him when he nearly folded in on himself.

"I love you." It was just a whisper, but it was an earnest one.

"And I you, Orihara," was her reply, traced along the skin of his back.

"You'll still sit up with me?"

"Of course."

They made their way over to the couch and sat, clothed in shadows and cuddled close together, both contemplating separate— or perhaps quite similar—matters. They both looked over, however, at the sound of the bedroom door creaking open.

"Hey. Everything okay?"

"Shizu-chan." Izaya sighed the name, then reached out for a hug. Shizuo, sleepy-eyed and looking a bit annoyed, shuffled over to oblige.

"Is someone going to tell me why we aren't all asleep in bed?" he asked, sitting beside Izaya on the couch.

"We're hiding from the nightmares," Celty explained. "They can't find us while we're awake."

Shizuo's eyebrows arched. "Oh?"

"Yeah," Izaya admitted. "That's about the gist of it."

"Well..." Shizuo scratched the back of his neck, then sighed. "I guess... yeah, okay."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Izaya asked, and Shizuo shrugged.

"It means I'm too sleepy to string words together."

"Then go back to bed," Celty said gently, but Shizuo shook his head.

"No way." Then he added, "I don't want the nightmares to find me, either. So if you're saying we're all safe here, I'll stay right here."

Izaya felt a strange heaviness settle in his chest, but it was a warm sensation. He linked his elbow around Shizuo's, twisting their arms and interlocking their fingers. The blonde looked over at him in surprise, but accepted the action nonetheless.

" _Guuuys_...!"

All three on the couch looked over at the pathetic whine; Shinra, blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cape, stood in the doorway with a pouty look on his face.

"What are you all doing out here? It's really really _really_ cold when the bed is empty!" the doctor complained.

"Well stop your griping and get over here," Celty held up, and Shinra scuttled obediently over. With an exaggerated groan, he flopped down across Celty and Izaya's laps, wriggling as if to make a spot for himself there.

"Hey— hey!" Izaya objected playfully, shoving at him. Shizuo, getting inadvertently smacked by the information dealer's wing in the process, stood up.

"Well if we're going to make a party of it, I'm getting cookies and milk," he announced, and Izaya stuck out his tongue.

"Any excuse in the book for your abhorrent sweets and beloved dairy."

"Well, I'd ask if you wanted _your_ favorite food, but tuna is hardly midnight snack material."

"I will take a cup of coffee, as long as you're in the kitchen!"

Celty reached over and smacked the fallen angel. "Then we'll never get you to sleep!" she typed angrily.

"No way— then it'll be impossible to get you to sleep!" Shizuo, from the kitchen, echoed Celty's statement. The dullahan looked satisfied at being inadvertently backed up.

"Fine, fine…" Izaya sighed, giving up and folding in half so that his forehead was resting on Shinra's back.

Shizuo returned a moment later with three glasses of milk and a plate of cookies. That managed to get Shinra in an upright position, and he wriggled himself into the spot between Izaya and Shizuo on the couch. The blonde ended up drinking Izaya's glass of milk because— in typical Izaya fashion —he refused it, but the information dealer did eat a cookie out of Shizuo's hand when the blonde was sufficiently persistent.

And so, suddenly, it was just like any other night. No one knew exactly when, least of all Izaya, but eventually all four of them fell asleep like that, heaped on the couch together as if to keep the nightmares at bay through sheer force of numbers.


	12. Warmonger

_(A/N) A lot of the stuff about Izaya's (Semyaza's) past, as well as Azazels, is based in exisiting legends. I just got to play with and twist them to my liking. What'll come later, like a lot of the mythology of Sutures, is purely original._

 _Azazel became my favorite fallen angel after I watched Shingeki no Bahamut. While the Azazel portrayed here isn't necessarily inspired by that version of Azazel, I still felt like mentioning it because it's an amazing show and their Azazel is absolutely fabulous. ;P_

* * *

The nightmares did end up finding him that night, but Izaya discovered that waking up— smushed as he was between Celty and Shinra —was soothing rather than terrifying. And so, he thought, perhaps he could deal with them after all. Shizuo and Celty left for work as usual, adding to the serene feeling of routine that was reclaiming the house.

"Is this whole fallen angel thing just a ploy to get out of doing the chores?"

Shinra was barely visible beneath the pile of clothes and sheets he was carrying. Izaya, reclining on the couch, laughed. His office was still quite unusable, so he had set up shop in the living room instead, laptop sitting on the coffee table before him.

"Since when have I needed any sort of excuse like that?" he asked, and then said into the phone, "No, no, I'm sorry. My roommate said something amusing. But continue, I'm intensely interested."

"Are you just pretending to be on the phone?" Shinra huffed.

"I'm a very important person," Izaya retorted, covering the receiver this time. "I don't have to fake the demand for my time."

"Oops!" With an exaggerated stumble, Shinra sprawled forward. The mountain of dirty laundry crashed down onto Izaya, making him yelp and curse as the phone was knocked from his hand. Shinra deliberately followed the clothes, leaping over the back of the couch and plowing into Izaya through the layer of cloth now covering him.

"That was important..." Izaya objected, although faltering under Shinra's weight as he fished for his phone in the avalanche. Eventually the doctor overwhelmed him completely and he surrender, folding forward under the weight and with his wings flapping vaguely amid the laundry.

"Quality time is _more_ important, Iza- _chan_."

"You just want me to help with the chores," the other said accusatorially, and Shinra laughed bashfully.

"Maybe. Is that so wrong?"

"Well it certainly isn't happening," Izaya grunted, and his phone could be heard to be ringing somewhere from within the clothes. "Now, if I have even one _iota_ of luck left that'll be my client calling back, so if you would _kindly_ get off me..."

With a heave of both body and wings, Izaya managed at last to throw the doctor off, then scrabbled wildly to find his phone. Shinra laughed as he rolled to the side, slumping down onto the couch upside down beside Izaya.

"Yes? Yes, I'm terribly sorry about that. Living with such people can be extremely troublesome."

"Pay attention to me insteeeaaaad..." Shinra begged, but suddenly his own cell was ringing, too. Still upside down, he fished it from his pocket and answered. "Hello?"

Izaya glanced over from amid the laundry as Shinra did an altogether too-elaborate somersault off the couch and onto his feet, placing his free hand on his hip as he spoke into the phone.

"Yeah? Shoot. Got it. Yeah... no, no. Yeah. I'll be over, okay? Yeah, give me about ten minutes. Yeah. Yeah, on my way."

As he watched Shinra, Izaya found it harder to concentrate on what his own client was saying than it should have been. The doctor trotted down the stairs, retrieving his work bag from the basement.

"I'll be back soon," he told Izaya briefly, leaning down for a quick kiss as he passed the couch. Then, skipping backwards down the hallway as he waved, he vanished around the bend of the entryway. Izaya heard the door shut, and it occurred to him suddenly what a lonely sound it was.

"Are you still listening?"

Giving himself a shake, Izaya stood and nodded, a sock falling off his head and a sheet still hanging off one wing. "Yeah... yeah, go ahead."

But as the client continued to talk, he found himself staring at the forgotten laundry. And, as he continued the conversation, he began to pick up articles of cloth and drag them toward the laundry room.

It took him several trips, wings and phone accommodated awkwardly along with the armfuls of clothes, but eventually he managed to get the washer loaded and going. Feeling himself smile, he cracked his neck and made his way into the kitchen.

The dishes were piling up. He wondered why he hadn't noticed that before.

... ... …

"I'm home!"

Shizuo's cheerful call was greeted by complete silence. Furrowing his brow, he made his way into the living room, where he found Celty crouched over the couch and holding up one finger for quiet. Making an effort to move more slowly, Shizuo crept over to where she stood and looked down.

Izaya lay there, curled up tightly with his wings pinned against the back of the sofa, twitching slightly and occasionally. He had his primary cellphone cradled to his chest and a childish look on his face, obviously sleeping more peacefully than he had in days.

"He did the laundry, and the dishes, too."

Shizuo nearly choked with surprise as Celty held up the words, but managed to keep his voice to a whisper as he said, "Well _that's_ new."

"He forgot to put detergent in the laundry, but still."

The blonde chuckled. "Well, he _never_ does the laundry, so what can you expect?" Then, staring down at the sleeping angel, he shook his head and smiled fondly. "What the hell do you think got into him, wanting to be all domestic and helpful?"

"Who knows?" Celty replied. "But it was pretty sweet, regardless."

The door opened again, then shut, and Shinra came hurrying down the hallway. He had his mouth open to speak, but Shizuo and Celty both managed to silence him before he cried out. Coming over more slowly, he peered down at Izaya's sleeping form and very nearly melted.

"Isn't he just the cutest...?!" he whisper-squealed, and Celty punched him in the stomach. "N-Next... to you, of course, my dear...!" the doctor wheezed out, and Celty just shrugged.

"Let's let him sleep," Shizuo said, turning. "C'mon, we might as well just get dinner ready."

... ... …

Contrary to what his lovers might have thought, Izaya was not sleeping entirely peacefully.

" _Onward!_ "

It wasn't one of the more violent dreams— Izaya himself wasn't in pain, but the screams of those who were were all around him.

 _"Why don't you join them, Semyaza? Aren't you their leader?"_

Izaya knew that it was a true statement, but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything at all as he watched one of his own followers burn alive. _Yes... because this had all been calculated._ He remembered.

 _"And what about you, Azazel? They're your loyalists, too."_ He had no control over what he was saying— it had already been said millennia ago, after all.

 _"I suppose they are." The fallen angel standing beside him gave an exaggerated sigh. "But for you and your Watchers, this is a matter of family. Your wives and sons were recently slain, isn't that true?"_

 _Izaya felt himself laugh, his wings rising. They felt as light as air in the dream-memory; as easy to control as any other limb. "I wasn't foolish enough to take part in that nonsense."_

 _"'Nonsense?'" Azazel purred. "Wasn't it you who suggested 199 law-abiding angels abandon their heavenly duties and take human wives? Are you telling me that you yourself_ didn't _?"_

 _"Of course not." Izaya's wings rattled as he laughed. "I wouldn't do something so completely doomed to failure. I was just curious to see what would come of it, that's all. And now I get to lend them and their rage to you to use to play your game of war. The whole thing turned out far more fruitful and entertaining than even I thought it would."_

 _Azazel reached over, resting one large hand on Izaya— on_ Semyaza's _—shoulder. And his grip tightened, rubbing in a familiar way at the side of his neck._

 _"You're a nasty piece of work, my friend," he laughed. "Remind me never to make an enemy of you, dear information broker."_

 _"Likewise, my darling warmonger."_

... ... …

Izaya woke with a start, feeling his wings push against the couch cushion behind him in an attempt to unfurl. He bit his lip, tasting blood on his tongue.

 _Azazel... we had... a deal. … We had an alliance._

The house smelled good— soothing. He could hear jovial voices from the direction of the kitchen, and sat up slowly.

 _Two Missed Calls,_ his phone informed him, but he tucked it into his pocket without checking them. He cracked his neck, in one direction then the other, and stood. His wings dragged at the weary muscles of his back; too exhausted to do otherwise, he let them hang limply and trail along the ground.

"Izaya!" Celty was the first to notice him and wave, but it was Shinra who called out. "You're awake! Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough." It wasn't exactly a lie. That type of dream was unsettling, but certainly preferable to the more traumatic nightmares he had been having.

Shizuo moved forward, pressing a surprise kiss to his lips. "Good to hear," he murmured, and Izaya felt the tips of his ears heat up.

"Dinner's almost ready?" he asked, for the sake of a distraction. There was a pot of noodles on the stove, and a skillet of fried rice and chicken.

"Almost," Shinra replied, as Shizuo moved to the refrigerator. He pulled out a familiarly-patterned parcel, and Izaya's eyebrows arched.

"I ran into Simon while I was at work," he explained. "He asked about you, so I told him you were sick. He gave me this to give to you— wouldn't take no for an answer. Said something like 'Good food best medicine.' You know how he is."

Izaya, an unexpectedly thick sensation lodging in his throat, accepted the sushi. "Fool..." he murmured. "And here I'm not even sick..."

 _"How does it feel to be so completely unattached?"_ Azazel's voice echoed in his ears, and he closed his eyes as the fiery heat of memory washed over him. _"How does it feel to care for no one and have no one care for you, you shitty little coward?"_

 _"It's the best feeling in the entire world._

 _"It's the most powerful kind of freedom."_

He had answered that way, some four thousand years ago. And he had tried to be— thought he _was_ —of the same mindset even in his current, mortal state. But what if...

"... You'll have to remind me to thank him."


	13. Complicate

It was almost strange how quickly their morning routine fell back into place— washing of faces and brushing of teeth and good morning kisses; Shinra shouting at Shizuo not to light a cigarette in the living room and Celty hurrying to snuff the thing out when the blonde tossed it carelessly onto the carpet. But a new set of wings didn't affect any of that, and for once Izaya didn't mind the dullness of everyday life.

He certainly preferred it, he decided, to the drama of falling from heaven and entangling himself with the thrice-damned angel of war.

There was a sharp knock at the door that broke through the peaceful atmosphere, and Izaya's wings rustled. As he turned, he managed to knock over a lamp with one feathered appendage, and winced as it went crashing to the ground.

Shizuo burst out laughing.

"Oi! Open up! It's me, Namie!"

Izaya's face paled, his feathers rising to stand on end. He glanced at his three lovers, then smiled apologetically. "You've got to stall her. Just... make something up. I can't talk to anyone, not now."

"Leave it to us," Shinra said, and Celty gave a thumbs-up.

"Go wait in the bedroom," Shizuo added. "We'll come get you when the coast is clear."

Nodding gratefully, Izaya hurried back into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Then, exchanging nervous glances, the other three nodded to one another.

It was Shinra who answered the demanding knocking, and so it was Shinra who was bowled off his feet by a furious Namie.

"Where is he?"

"Where is who?" Shizuo blurted out, and the woman scowled.

"You know exactly who! That little louse Izaya, that's who! That bastard hasn't shown up for work for five days, and he won't answer my calls!"

"What makes you think that we know anything?" Celty asked, and Namie knocked her phone from her hand.

"All three of you are fucking him," she said, "so at least one of you _has_ to know where he's hiding!"

"That's a pretty bold accusation," Shinra said mildly, picking himself back up. Celty trotted to his side, helping him to his feet.

"Please," Namie scoffed. "It's all entirely obvious. And Izaya likes to think he's independent, but five days alone and he'd be starving on the streets. You three spoil him rotten, anyway, so you'd never leave him to fend for himself."

Shizuo shrugged. "I guess that's true."

"But regardless, we don't know where he is," Shinra said.

"And even if we did," Celty added, "you should know we'd never reveal it."

Namie laughed, her voice obnoxiously loud. "Look at you guys closing ranks!" she cackled. "Dear god, could you _be_ anymore obvious?"

"Being obvious isn't something we need to be concerned about," Shizuo retorted.

"It isn't as if you could take all three of us on," Shinra added.

"So if you want to push it, we'd be happy to push back," Celty held up.

Again Namie laughed, but this time she was a bit pale. "Right, right. But look, I need to know where he is. Not that I really care, but I can't do my job while he's off playing hooky."

"Whatever he's occupied with right now is more important than your job, I'd be willing to bet," Shizuo said, placing himself more obtrusively in front of the intruder.

"It's not like I care—!" Namie repeated again, and then looked down. She took half a step back; shifted her weight. "I just... I was supposed to get paid yesterday, you know?

"... And that's kind of important to me."

"You _did_ get paid yesterday. You have direct deposit, remember?"

Namie's breath caught, and all four people turned toward the bedroom. The door was opened just a crack, Izaya leaning in a seemingly relaxed way through the opening. His back and shoulders weren't visible.

"You miss me that much, hmm?" Izaya flashed a truly mocking smile, yet his eyes were soft. Namie stiffened.

"Izaya, you don't have to—" Shizuo began, but the information dealer shook his head.

"I got tired of hearing her pathetic whimpering," he said, and then smiled again. "I guess even you're capable of getting attached to someone other than your lousy brother."

Namie's face reddened. "I can't believe I wasted even a _minute_ wondering where you were!"

"A minute of your life you'll never get back, hmm?" Izaya asked, with mock sympathy. With an angry sound that barely fell short of being words, Namie spun on her heel and stormed back out the door.

"You four deserve each other!" she yelled, although she didn't turn. "Just keep him, for all I care!" And she slammed the door shut behind her.

Izaya, with a sigh of relief, slumped down against the door frame, one wing becoming visible over his shoulder. Then he grinned at his three housemates.

"That should keep her out of our hair for a while, right?"

"It was a bit harsh..." Celty put in, one hand to her hip.

"You didn't have to do that," Shizuo huffed. "We would have handled it."

"I know, I know..." Izaya sighed heavily, then tipped his head back and smiled. "But she really did seem worried, you know? I figured that seeing my smiling face would quell her fears just a bit."

Another knock caught everyone off-guard, to say the least. But when the voice came through the door, all but one of them relaxed.

"Shizuo? Are you in there?"

Shizuo's face drained of color. "I'm... late..." he muttered, sounding a bit stunned, then called louder, "I'll be out in just a minute, Tom-san!"

Tom laughed softly on the other side of the door. "Don't worry about it. Just do hurry. We have a busy day, you know."

"I know, I know!" Kissing first Izaya, then Celty, and lastly Shinra, Shizuo darted out the door even as he was fixing his tie into place. Once the door had shut behind him, his three lovers burst into varying volumes of laughter.

"Some things never change..." Izaya murmured fondly, then straightened and shook out his wings. "I should catch up on some work myself. Let me be for an hour or so?"

"No problem," Shinra said, waving slightly as Izaya grabbed his laptop and retreated to the bedroom. But even as he went he managed to knock a stack of books over, startling himself and causing his feathers to fluff out. The doctor chuckled.

"Getting better at that, are we?"

"Sort of... I guess," Izaya said, and then smiled grudgingly. "I'll get it eventually, okay?"

"Fair enough."

... ... …

There had been a time when Izaya had done ample research on the matters of dullahans and valkyries and the existence of heaven. If it was possible for digital files to be dusty, though, the ones dealing with such subjects were.

He had shown them to Shinra once, and that had been the end of it.

 _"Shinra, I've got something I want to show you."_

 _The doctor, rubbing sleep from his eyes, trudged over to Izaya's huge couch. He smiled._

 _"That's a super cute look, you know."_

 _Izaya gave him a coy little smile. His hair was ruffled, and he wore only a too-big, button-down pajama shirt. If not for the computer on his lap,_ things _would have been visible with the way he had his legs crossed, one ankle resting on the opposite knee._

 _"Glad you appreciate the view. Now get over here."_

 _Shinra flopped onto the cushion beside him, huffing slightly as he landed, and Izaya wrapped one arm casually around his shoulders._

 _"So what's up?" the doctor asked curiously, peering at the computer screen. Izaya clicked on a file, pulling up two similar, ancient-looking pieces of artwork. One was familiar to Shinra. "A dullahan?"_

 _"Yeah," Izaya said, with a trace of excitement. "And this one here on the left, this is what's called a valkyrie, taken from Norse mythology. She comes to gather the souls of the dead from battlefields."_

 _"Interesting...?"_

 _"Actually, very interesting," Izaya continued. "Some people think that these mythical women are actually the same creatures, the only difference being that a dullahan wanders the earth and Valkyries stay in their heaven, called Valhalla in Norse myth."_

 _"So you think that Celty is one of these valkyries, as well as a dullahan?" Shinra asked, and Izaya nodded._

 _"That's the thing. And you know how her head is asleep?"_

 _"... Izaya..."_

 _"No, no, hear me out." Izaya gave the doctor a gentle shake as he tensed. "Her head is asleep, right? I think its because we aren't on a battlefield. What do you think, Shinra? Want to see if we can't get into heaven together? If we can get her to wake up... if we turn Ikebukuro into a battlefield fit for—"_

 _That was as far as he got. Shinra, pushing away, slapped him across the face, stopping any words that might have followed. Izaya's eyes widened, and he could only blink in astonishment as the doctor held his gaze._

 _"If you drag Celty into one of your twisted schemes, I won't forgive you," Shinra said softly, with tears welling in his eyes. "I've seen what you do to people— I've watched it countless times, and I really don't mind. But if you try to do that to Celty..." Then, all at once, he was screaming, "If you make me choose between the two of you, I won't forgive you!"_

 _After a moment if stunned silence, Izaya cracked a smile and closed his laptop. "Alright, alright... consider the vacation plans for Valhalla cancelled, then." He held up his hands. "But only because you asked so nicely."_

 _Shinra held firm for another few seconds, but then nodded and slumped back down against Izaya._

 _"What I don't do..." the information dealer sighed softly, then kissed the top of Shinra's head. "I might have given up heaven for you just now."_

 _"You're too much..." Shinra muttered, but Izaya laughed._

 _"No, really." Then he sighed again, and paused before saying, "So you wouldn't be able to forgive me if I made you choose, but who_ would _you choose?"_

 _Shinra didn't reply, and Izaya had never asked him again._

With that encounter brought to the forefront of his mind, Izaya pulled up the old files regarding heaven and variations thereof. It hadn't been long after that that Celty's head had vanished, Yagiri Pharmaceuticals and Shinra Kishitani and Izaya Orihara all seeming equally powerless to track it down. So the whole thing had become a moot issue.

But now Izaya had a different reason to pursue heaven.

He had always believed in the afterlife, but not necessarily in a god. Now he knew for certain that both existed, and that he had been intimately involved with both at one point.

 _I... stood beside Lucifer... but before that…_

He remembered a glimmering throne. He remembered polishing it. He remembered a room stacked to the ceiling with shelves of scrolls, and he remembered the angel who was eternally scrib-scrib-scribbling at the desk in the corner; he remembered learning to fly among those shelves, if only to more easily reach to uppermost scrolls. Trying to climb up to them had resulted in several landslides.

He knew— and remembered —the True Name of God Himself.

 _-Tanaka Taro has entered the room-_

The alert from the chatroom jarred Izaya from his thoughts, and he sat up a bit straighter.

Tanaka Taro: Good evening.

Tanaka Taro: Oh, is no one here?

 _-Kanra has entered the room-_

It was a whim, really, but Izaya found he couldn't resist.

Kanra: Goooooood evening! (^з^)-

Tanaka Taro: Ah! Kanra-san! You haven't been around for a few days!

Tanaka Taro: Is everything alright?

Izaya paused, but then shrugged and typed,

Kanra: Fine, fine. Just a bit under the weather. But I'm quick to bounce back, so not to worry.

Kanra: But you flatter me with the concern. (／≧∇＼)

Tanaka Taro: That's good to hear!

 _\- Saika has entered the room-_

Saika: Good evening.

Tanaka Taro: Good evening, Saika!

Kanra: Heeeey! (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Saika: Oh

Saika: Kanra-san

Saika: It's good to see you.

Saika: Is everything alright?

Kanra: Yes, yes, your friend Kanra is quite indestructible~ didn't you know?

Saika: Oh! Okay.

Saika: I'm glad.

Kanra: I'm so surprised and overwhelmed that you were both worried! ヽ(；▽；)ノ

And Izaya, sitting cross-legged on the bed with his wings half-folded on his back, found that it was true. Anri Sonohara would hardly spare _him_ any concern, yet she was worried about Kanra. And Mikado, although he knew full well that it was Izaya Orihara on the other side of his laptop, had _still_ been concerned.

Kanra: So, what have I missed?

Tanaka Taro: Nothing too exciting.

Saika: Yes.

Saika: Its been pretty quiet lately.

 _\- Bakyura has entered the room -_

Bakyura: Funny how that seems to happen whenever Kanra drops off the radar.

Kanra: YO (^_－)－

Bakyura: GDI why aren't you dead? (ノ_＜)

Kanra: Can't kill Kanra-chan so easily~ ヾ（〃⌒∇⌒）ﾉ

Bakyura: ... Despite everyone's best attempts.

Kanra: You're so mean! …_…

Masaomi's familiar chatter made Izaya smile. There was something innocent about the boy's hatred of him; Masaomi Kida couldn't sentence him to eternity in Hell or rip his wings out. Masaomi Kida might hate him, but that emotion was as powerless as a human's hate for God.

Saika: Guys

Saika: Let's not fight.

Saika: Kanra-san

Saika: Just came back.

Kanra: It's alright, it's alright.

Kanra: Our bickering is all in fun.

Kanra: Right, Bakyura-chan? (〃⌒∇⌒)

Bakyura: Go die. ಠ_ಠ

Kanra: See? He's such a jokester!

Tanaka Taro: Sometimes I think you two are a little more serious than you let on...

Saika: Guys

Saika: let's not...

 _\- Setton has entered the room -_

Setton: … What have I walked into this time?

Kanra: Setton!（人´∀`）～

Tanaka Taro: Setton! Good evening!

Saika: Setton-san!

Saika: Good evening!

Bakyura: Setton, Kanra is being completely obnoxious.

Setton: Again?

Kanra: Hey! I'm only being my charming self! (⌒◇⌒；)

Bakyura: Charming like a poisonous snake...

Tanaka Taro: That is a bit true, haha.

Kanra: Oh sure, gang up on defenseless Kanra-chan when I've only just come back to you!

Kanra: You're all just too cruel! ( ͒˃̩̩⌂˂̩̩ ͒)

Izaya found himself laughing as he typed it, and he felt his wings rustle with amusement.

Setton: We're kidding, Kanra, we're kidding.

Setton: Well, maybe Bakyura-san isn't...

Bakyura: I'm not.

Bakyura: Die Kanra die. (ﾒ｀･д･´)ﾉﾞ

Setton: ... But the rest of us are.

Tanaka Taro: Yeah.

Tanaka Taro: We're really glad to have you back, Kanra.

Tanaka Taro: You keep things lively around here.

Saika: Yes

Saika: Because we're friends

Saika: Right?

And Izaya found it as easy as it had always been to answer as Kanra, even though this time he couldn't help the confused swelling of emotion in his own, real-life chest.

Kanra: Of course we're friends!

Kanra: I love you all! （人´∀`*）

Kanra: Except maybe...

Kanra: No, even Bakyura-chan!

Kanra: I love you all! (づ´▽`)づ～

Bakyura: Seriously, go die, you creep!

Kanra: You won't get rid of Kanra-chan so easily! (ゝ◡╹)ノ

And that made Izaya smile. _If I could stay here with you forever, my beloved humans… my precious monsters…_

 _… But perhaps that isn't to be._

... ... …

"What year is it again...?"

"2010, Majesty."

"Hmm... 2010, then? That Watcher brat's sentence should be almost up, isn't that right?"

"If memory serves, Majesty, yes."

"Hmf." With a rustling of huge wings, an intimidating figure stood and shook his head. "Well then... I think it's just about time we tracked him down, don't you?"

"If I may be so bold, Majesty... for what purpose?"

The figure shook with surprised laughter, feathers rattling with the motion. "Your memory may be a bit spotty after all. I, on the other hand, have never forgotten the _humiliation_ that I suffered at the hands of that whelp.

"And I will make him _suffer_ before his own damnation sends him plummeting into hell. I'll make him _beg_ for the grace of my forgiveness."


	14. Four of Us

_(A/N) Just a bit more smut before things get serious in part two... (in my head, this fic is divided into three parts- unofficial part two begins in the next chapter~)_

* * *

"Come to bed, Izaya."

The named glanced up briefly, then waved Shinra off. "I'll just finish this one thing," he said, his keyboard clacking almost musically as he typed. The doctor sighed.

"Alright… but just that one thing. Then come to bed, okay?"

"Okay."

Nearly an hour later, it was Celty.

"Izaya, come to bed."

The information dealer glanced up with obviously sleepy eyes, smiling in a somewhat condescending way. "Please, my dear. I'm almost finished, don't fret."

"That's bullshit, Orihara."

"I'll be there in a moment," he insisted, then bent his head again and ruffled his stiff wings.

"You'd better."

"Mm-hmm. Yes, dear."

And then, after far more than a single moment had ticked by, it was Shizuo.

"Oi, Flea."

"Hmm?"

"Bed. Now."

Izaya simply shook his head; didn't look up. "In a minute, Shizu-chan. I simply can't stop in the middle of this. I'll be in shortly."

But Shizuo, unlike the other two, didn't try to argue. The blonde simply strolled forward, mouth held firmly in a cross line, and grabbed the back of Izaya's chair, wrenching it away from the kitchen table where his laptop sat.

"H-Hey… Hey!" the informant objected, then shrieked softly as he was scooped from his seat. "Put me down, you brute!"

"Shut up," Shizuo growled, hefting the other and adjusting his grip to account for the new set of limbs. He didn't even bother to close Izaya's computer as he strode confidently back to the bedroom with the fallen angel in tow. By the time they reached the bed, Izaya had stopped struggling.

"That was way more than just 'one more thing,'" Shinra observed dryly from his spot beside Celty, looking up from his book as Izaya was dumped unceremoniously into the center of the bed.

"They were all important things," the informant offered innocently, keeping his wings tucked somewhat beneath him.

"More important than us?" Shizuo asked crossly, climbing up onto the bed and crawling over where he had dropped Izaya. The fallen angel shrunk back, although a mischievous smile was tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Weren't you pestering me to go to sleep a second ago?"

"Just to bed," Shizuo corrected. "I never said anything about sleep." Then he leaned in for a kiss, but Izaya dodged him and scooted up to the head of the bed, resting his shoulder against Shinra's.

"Now, now… you interrupted my very important work," he told the disgruntled blonde. "That's not the type of behavior that earns you kisses."

"The nerve of him, right?" Shinra asked, reaching over with one hand to rub Izaya's shoulder. The fallen angel shuddered and leaned slightly over.

"Nerve… right…" he groaned. "Just keep doing that. To hell with my important work…"

Smiling slightly, Shinra laid his book aside and adjusted their position so that he could rub Izaya's back and shoulders with both hands. After a few minutes of the massage, the fallen angel was totally relaxed, and didn't even question it when Shizuo tried again to kiss him. Instead, he simply wrapped his arms around the blonde's neck for stability and reciprocated.

"There's the trick," Shinra said softly, but stiffened as he felt a touch on his shoulder.

"Really?" Celty held up, but Shinra could tell she wasn't actually irritated. "Haven't we been waiting for him so that we can ALL go to SLEEP?"

"And you aren't just a little bit up for it?" Shinra asked, a bit imploringly. He turned away from Izaya to place his hands on her hips, then let them drift farther back to the dullahan's rear; Celty stiffened as he groped, but she didn't pull away.

"Maybe," she admitted, a visible shiver running up her spine as Shinra squeezed harder.

"Then _maybe_ we should follow their example…" he murmured, his hand running beneath her until he found the inside of her thigh. The dullahan's shadows billowed, and she squirmed slightly under his touch.

Shizuo had worked Izaya down onto his back by that time. The informant moaned loudly, his legs lifting as the blonde worked his jeans and boxers— the only articles of clothing he was wearing —down and off. He stiffened and let his back arch as Shizuo reached down, finding his half-hard cock and fingering it, pad of his thumb playing with the head.

Shinra, his own member responding to the sounds the fallen angel was making, shifted Celty onto his lap. The dullahan set to undressing him even as her own clothes disappeared, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders; let herself be fondled and kissed, and shuddered when Shinra reached low and touched her clit.

Izaya's moans only grew louder as Shizuo's fingers found his entrance. There was the feeling of lube being applied, then one slick digit sliding inside. Izaya groaned, letting his hands drop from the blonde's shoulders— now too low to properly grasp —to the bed.

Shinra leaned forward slowly, tipping Celty until her back met the mattress. She was wet against his probing fingers, shivering under his touch. He took one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked lightly, making her shake more violently, before trailing kisses down her body— her narrow chest and toned stomach and twitching hips, pausing as he reached her snatch. The dullahan's back arched as he lavished his attention there, sucking and licking and working her over with enthusiastic lips and tongue until she came.

Izaya was fully aware of what was going on beside him while Shizuo was prepping him, Celty's neck just visible in his peripheral vision. And when Shinra's head reappeared, he reached up and grabbed a fistful of the doctor's hair. Shinra stretched obediently so that he could meet Izaya's searching mouth, and the resulting kiss was heated and open-mouthed and sloppy, tasting strongly of Celty. Shinra's breath hitched and he whimpered into Izaya's lips as Celty's shadows began to twine around him; the information dealer chuckled, only to be reduced to a loud moan when Shizuo worked all four fingers into him.

All four of them moved at once— Celty flipping Shinra over onto his back and Shizuo wrenching Izaya up onto his knees, using a firm grip on his wing to force him onto his hands and knees. Shinra laughed breathily, reaching up to knot one hand in Izaya's hair.

"Guess we both know who's in charge, hmm?"

Izaya grinned tensely. "This is all your fault."

"My fault?" Shinra objected playfully. Izaya slowly, lovingly, removed his glasses, then brought their faces close together.

"You got me to lower my guard."

"I don't think that's exactly my problem."

And then their tongues were too entangled with one another's to exchange any more words. Shinra cried out as Celty simultaneously impaled herself on his cock and penetrated him with a bundle of shadows; his hips shook violently with the overload of stimulation, but Izaya's mouth against his kept him from screaming.

But then it was Izaya who needed Shinra's tongue for a gag as Shizuo entered him, pushing in in one strong, fluid motion. The fallen angel's wings shuddered as the blonde's grip on them tightened, and Shizuo leaned in close over his back.

"You okay?" he whispered heatedly in the other's ear, and Izaya broke away from Shinra just briefly to pant out an answer, squirming as he adjusted.

"Y-Yeah… go ah—! … ahead…!"

Then Shinra was pulling him demandingly down again, and their lips met in a frantic, clumsy kiss. The doctor's back arched as Celty's shadows stroked every sensitive part of his insides, his cock alive with the friction of her wet sheath. It was altogether too much, and only the feeling of Izaya's hair and mouth kept him grounded in any sort of reality.

Shizuo groaned heavily as Izaya's tight heat clenched around him, and he thrust first slowly and then more rapidly. Keeping a one-handed grip on Izaya's left wing, he reached down with his right to find the information dealer's straining cock. Izaya convulsed beneath him as he grabbed it and began to pump in time to his thrusts, and Shizuo heard a wail muffled by Shinra's mouth.

Shinra and Izaya came almost simultaneously, both sobbing slightly into the kiss they shared. Shizuo pumped a few more times, shallowly, and followed behind them, shouting loudly with his climax. Celty too was shaking as she came, and Shinra cried out as her shadows writhed inside him and her sheath tightened around him. Then all four of them were lying in a sweaty, sticky heap, panting and trying to catch their breaths.

A silent consensus was reached that it would be too much trouble to worry about showering at the moment. Sheets could always be washed the day after, anyway. Celty and Shizuo exchanged brief, mutual congratulations by way of a fist bump as all four of them rearranged themselves, Izaya and Shinra cuddled together in the middle of the bed.

"We'll never stop doing this, will we?"

Izaya's eyes were closed, and the question was so uncharacteristic that Celty and Shizuo weren't sure they had heard right. But Shinra didn't flinch in answering, kissing first one of Izaya's eyelids and then the other.

"Never."

"Good…" Izaya sighed softly, and didn't speak again. Shinra didn't seem disturbed, lying down easily beside him and closing his own eyes. So Celty and Shizuo, exchanging a somewhat nervous glance, shrugged and lay down on either side of the bed, the dullahan's shadows turning the lights off.

But, despite his exhaustion, Izaya didn't sleep that night. He was too busy cataloging the things that he hoped would never change— the things he hoped he would be able to keep.

He was too busy cataloging memories, so that he would have _something_ left to cling to even if he couldn't keep those things.


End file.
